






























































































































Book i 14 6>4~3 


Copyright U 0 C &, 

COPYRIGHT ^>tPoj(n^ 


































CHILDREN OF 
CHANCE 

/ ' 

BY 

ANTHONY CARLYLE 

AUTHOR OF “THE FUGITIVE MILLIONAIRE,” 

“ UNLAWFUL OCCASIONS,” ETC. 



BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
Wbt &tberstlie $re$s; CambrtbQC 

1923 




COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 


It H»tJCt£((bC 

CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. 


MAR 2 6 '23 | 

© Cl A698739 


M £ ')/ 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 







CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


i 

Binny Clay, drifting in the direction of Scar- 
lossi’s Theatre, pulled the high collar of her 
cheap coat closer about her neck and shivered. 

She was out of a job. She was cold and 
tired. She was depressed, and she was hungry 
— very hungry indeed. A girl friend had, 
half an hour ago, given her a drink out of 
mistaken generosity. The effect was to em¬ 
phasize the hollow feeling at her waist-line, 
and to inflame her sense of rebellion against 
Fate, and the world in general. 

Halting abruptly outside Scarlossi’s, rebel¬ 
lion became resentment. From half a dozen 
life-size photographs in imposing gilt frames 
the face of Lola Arnaut, London’s new 
favourite of the footlights, smiled at her 
demurely, pensively, or provocatively. And 
to Binny Clay it was exactly as if she had 
paused to look at her own face in a mirror. 

The likeness was extraordinary, uncanny. 


2 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


Though for weeks now Binny had gazed upon 
it, as in a looking-glass, it never ceased to be 
amazing. The features were identical, the 
tilt of the chin, the moulding of head and 
cheek and throat, the full, curved bow of the 
mouth. Even the little ears, delicate and 
close-set, were the same. 

Binny knew this through intimate search¬ 
ings of her personal reflection in the cracked 
and murky mirror which adorned the shabby 
wall of her diminutive “fourth floor back.” 
No one, passing now, and glancing from her 
to the portrait of Lola Arnaut, would have 
thought of making any comparison. 

Binny, huddled in the folds of her shabby 
wrap coat, was an insignificant, somewhat 
bedraggled figure. Her shoulders were 
drooped, her hair escaped in wisps from 
beneath her close-fitting hat. Her lips were 
dry, her face was pinched. There were blue 
circles under her eyes, and the eyes them¬ 
selves were unnaturally large. 

But given the right clothes, warmth and 
food, a touch of rouge, and she would be 
transformed to the living, breathing image 
of the woman in the photograph. 

As has been said, the fact that she was 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


3 


Lola Arnaut’s “double” was to Binny a con¬ 
stant source of interest and amazement. A 
year ago she might have found it utterly 
bewildering as well. A year ago she had 
not known the explanation of the likeness. 

It had been whispered to her, haltingly, 
by a dying woman in one of the dirty back 
rooms of an evil-smelling tenement house. 
That same woman, illiterate, harsh of tongue, 
occasionally over-ready with a blow, had 
cared for Binny ever since the girl could 
remember. 

At one time dresser to many theatrical 
people of note, circumstances, an undesirable 
husband, and a weakness for gin had brought 
her low. But she had shown an odd conscien¬ 
tiousness with regard to the upbringing of 
Binny. She had been somewhat astonishingly 
strict in her guardianship of the girl, if crude 
in her method of enlightening her as to the 
pitfalls, many and varied, which were likely 
to beset her path through life. 

Remembering her now, Binny blinked. 
There had been a rough and undemonstrative 
affection existing between them. With the 
woman’s death Binny had been left utterly 
alone. How alone only she herself knew! 


4 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


Since “Mum” Jenkins’s death, Binny had 
found life increasingly difficult. Though Mrs. 
Jenkins had masterfully decided upon a the¬ 
atrical career for her, the girl had known only 
three engagements, and those in pantomime. 
And during the last year she had earned her 
living precariously, dancing or singing at 
third-rate cafes frequented chiefly by for¬ 
eigners. 

It was not a nice life. Binny detested it 
heartily. But it had provided earnings suffi¬ 
cient to pay for a roof of sorts and a limited 
quantity of bread and margarine per day. 
And now, since she had revolted violently 
against the attentions of her latest employer, 
she was without a job. 

Her thoughts drifted back to Lola Arnaut, 
merged again hazily in a recollection of Mrs. 
Jenkins’s deathbed confidences. She dwelt 
upon the scene, visualizing it in every detail: 
the bleak room, the candle guttering upon an 
upturned condensed milk tin, the sagging cur¬ 
tain drawn across the window on a piece of 
string, the looming shadows in one corner, and 
the unlovely face of the dying woman that 
looked out from them. 

In those last moments Mrs. Jenkins’s brain 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


5 


and speech had been remarkably clear. She 
had said what she had to say briefly, without 
embellishment. 

“You’re not my kid. Perhaps you’ve 
guessed that already; it’s plain, anyway, 
you’re not my kind. But I’ve loved you 
same as if you were. Your mother was a 
chorus girl — and a lady. Most of ’em make 
out they’re daughters of clergymen or officers, 
but your mother, she was . An’ the stage was 
no place for her. You’ve got more talent than 
what she had, an’ that's not sayin’ much!” 

Binny knew a flicker of amusement at the 
recollection of the compliment. It passed. 
The weak voice was ringing at the back of 
her mind again. 

“But she was a lady, an’ I liked her. She 
liked me, too, and treated me different to the 
rest. An’ then a young swell fell in love with 
her and wanted her to marry him. He was 
a real swell, one of her own sort. Not rich, 
but with enough, an’ prospec’s, so she told me, 
abroad. They was awfully in love, the two 
of ’em — an’ Mary, your mother, was dead 
sick of the life. She wanted to marry ’im an’ 
go right into a new life with ’im. But there 
was you. She’d never even told me about you 


6 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


before, though you was risin’ six months. 
You must ’ave ’ad a father, of course. But 
I never set eyes on ’im, an’ Mary she never 
mentioned ’im. She called herself Mary 
Munro on the stage, but your birth certificate 
was made out in the name of Clay.” 

The doors above her swung open and a 
couple of men ran down the steps in the 
streaming light. Binny watched them with¬ 
out interest, still absorbed in memories. 

“You’ll find it among my things. She left 
it with me when she went away. I’ve often 
wondered at her goin’ — like that — an’ you 
such a ’elpless wisp of a thing. But there! 
She was awful in love. An’ the man an’ his 
marrying ’er meant her whole chance of ’appi- 
ness. But she couldn’t let ’im know about 
you, o’ course. An’ so I took you an’ she went 
off. She used to send me money for you regu¬ 
lar; then it stopped. I found out after she 
’ad a baby an’ died. I ’spose I could ’a’ 
written to ’er ’usband — but I didn’t. I liked 
Mary, I did — an’ ’e loved her. Guess you’ll 
understand, girl.” 

Binny had understood. There were tears 
in her eyes now. But behind the tears was 
a faint bitterness. 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


7 


“That would be twenty-two years ago. The 
baby’d be a year an’ six months younger’n 
you. I wouldn’t ’ave told you anything about 
it, only it didn’t seem hardly fair. Not seein’ 
as how you’re placed, me peggin’ out an’ all. 
See here, Binny? You’ve seen the papers? 
The fuss they’re makin’ about this new girl 
from New York? Lola Arnaut, she calls 
’erself. Lord knows what they see in ’er, 
except that she’s pretty. Livin’ image of you, 
Binny, when you’ve washed extra an’ got your 
’air waved. Gave me quite a turn it did w’en 
I first saw ’er! But she ’asn’t no talent an’ 
no voice. You’d leave ’er at the ropes as far 
as singin’ goes. But she’s got a way of lookin’ 
... t . an’ I suppose some one’s backin’ ’er — 
an’ there you are. Then yards of ‘publicity’ 
in all the papers — ’ow she’s the daughter of 
real swells an’ ran away to go on the stage. 
May be true, an’ may be not. It don’t 
matter much. What I’m gettin’ at is that 
Mary Munro was ’er mother, same as she was 
yours! ’Tain’t so wonderful Lola Arnaut’s 
like you, seein’ as she’s your sister. It may 
come in ’andy for you to know that, Binny, 
some day when you’re nearly down an’ out!” 


II 


The doors swung wide again. A stream of 
people, talking and laughing, began to emerge 
from the theatre. Taxis came slurring, one 
after another, up to the kerb. 

Binny shook herself hurriedly free of her 
reminiscent mood and backed away from the 
crowd. There was a singing in her ears and 
her eyes were over-bright. Quite suddenly 
she was conscious of a determination to see 
Lola Arnaut. After all, she was practically 
“down and out” as “Mum” Jenkins had 
expressed it, and if Lola knew of the tie that 
existed between them she might help her. 

Binny drew a long breath. She was trem¬ 
bling, but her expression was set, her lips 
compressed. The courage of desperation was 
surging through her. She slid, eel-like, 
through the throng of people and down the 
side street into which the stage doors opened. 
In a short few minutes now Lola Arnaut would 
be coming out. Binny made up her mind to 
stop her, speak to her . v .. 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


9 


She sped on. Already round the stage door 
the usual crowd had gathered. Two or three 
cars were at the kerb, among them a small, 
dark, neat one in which, Binny knew, Lola 
invariably rode. This was not the first time 
she had hovered outside this particular stage 
door during the last few months. Only she 
never before had been desperate enough to do 
more than watch and envy. To-night was 
different. She had not felt as she felt to-night 
save once, when “Mum” Jenkins had forced 
her to drink nearly raw gin as a balm for 
raging toothache, and once when she had gone 
down with fever and had become light¬ 
headed. 

She decided, vaguely, that the drink she 
had swallowed to-night was only just begin¬ 
ning to have effect. Certainly she was not 
herself. A strange mood of recklessness was 
growing upon her. 

She drew her collar up close about her face, 
nearly concealing it, and took a place in the 
shadows opposite the dark, neat car. The 
interior was softly lighted. Binny caught a 
glimpse of Parma violets in a thin silver vase. 
A moment later she became aware of a man 
standing near. He wore a thick overcoat, 


10 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


the collar pulled up to his ears, and a soft cap 
drawn low over his eyes. 

He, too, was watching the stage door, and 
it struck Binny that there was something 
furtive in his manner. Once a shaft of light 
struck fully upon his face, revealing it clearly. 
It was thick-featured, dark, and rather brutal. 
She wondered idly whom he was waiting for, 
the while, at the back of her brain, “Mum” 
Jenkins’s dying words hammered insistently. 

“Lola Arnaut . . . your sister . . ... It 
may come in ’andy for you to know that . . 

some day when you’re nearly down and 
out . . 

There was a stir among the crowd. Binny 
noticed that the dark man had stepped 
swiftly off the kerb and was passing round 
at the back of the car. A moment later she 
saw him reach from the other side and the 
interior light went out. 

Binny was still staring as Lola Arnaut, her 
fur wraps huddled about her, hurried through 
the drizzle of rain and reached the car. The 
chauffeur stretched a long arm back and 
opened the door, shutting it sharply upon her 
as she whisked in, and the car slid gently away 
up the street. 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


11 


Binny stared after it. Dismay filled her 
soul. Then, upon an impulse which she could 
never afterwards understand, she began to 
run. Her dominant thought was that she 
must speak to Lola Arnaut to-night — to¬ 
night, while she was cold and hungry enough 
to cling to her courage. 

The chauffeur was driving very slowly. He 
would have to turn off into yet another narrow 
side street. Binny ran more quickly, out¬ 
pacing him, until she reached the curve of 
the pavement where the streets merged. Then 
she stepped into the road. 

She looked back at the approaching car, 
meaning to signal to the man to stop. But 
he mistook her gesture, growled something 
as he swerved to avoid her, and darkness 
engulfed her as the headlights swept by. The 
next instant, with a gasp, she jumped for 
the wide footboard. 

Giddy, scared, astonished at her own action, 
she clung frantically to the handle of the door. 
The window on her side was open. She heard 
Lola’s voice, startled, angry, but very low: 

“Gustav! What a fright you gave 
me i.. i., And then: “You have those 
jewels?” 


12 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 

Binny, urgently occupied with the task of 
keeping her position, listened with detach¬ 
ment. 

A man’s laugh — a singularly unprepossess¬ 
ing laugh — answered. 

“Eve got ’em all right! But you don’t sup¬ 
pose I’m going to be such a goldarned fool as 
to part with them? Come, kid! Be sensible! 
You can try the hysterical stunt on young 
Farrance — tell him you’ve been robbed. 
He’s in love enough to believe anything you 
like to say. It’s easy money, girl!” 

“I will not!” . . . 

The car lurched; Binny, clinging desper¬ 
ately to her precarious perch, missed the next 
few sentences. Then: “Farrance is too decent 
to treat like that. He lent me the jewels to 
help me to make a show with Van Bevan. 
You know he’ll never look at a girl who 
doesn’t dress really well and look as if she’d 
some substantial backing . . . It’s thanks 
to Farrance and the loan of those jewels that 
I’m going to sign that contract to-night at 
Delorme’s. He’ll be there as well as Van 
Bevan and the rest ... I’ve got to give 
him back those jewels. They belong to the 
family — heirlooms. Young Farrance had no 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


13 


right to let me have them. He’d get into a 
fearful trouble if his people knew of it . 

Binny groaned. The car was increasing 
speed, and this certainly was not a propitious 
moment to make known her presence to its 
occupants. It seemed to her she had perched 
here for hours, though she knew it was bare 
minutes. From beyond the open window 
there came a rustle of paper. The man spoke. 

“See here,” he said—“did you mean all that 
you said in that letter you sent me to-night?” 

Binny was conscious of a chill which was 
not entirely due to the sleety rain that beat 
through her thin coat. She was aware of an 
increasing and intense interest. She quite for¬ 
got the conversation was not meant for her 
ears, and listened eagerly for Lola’s reply. It 
came after an imperceptible pause. 

“I did. I can’t help it, Gustav. I’ve been a 
fool where you’re concerned and I’ve helped 
you in a good many crooked transactions. 
And I’d stick to it, I suppose. But if you 
don’t give me back Farrance’s jewels, I’m 
through. I’ll tell you took them from me. 
I’ll make your record known, so that you’ll 
be utterly done. I’ll ruin myself and damn 
my best chances, I kqpw. But I happen to 


14 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 

respect young Farrance as well as care for 
him —a bit. And I’ll do it! So now you 
know.” 

Binny endeavored, cautiously, to peer 
within, but the light was still out, the figures 
of the man and the woman indistinct. There 
ensued a moment of intense silence. The 
man’s low voice broke it. 

“Tell the driver the Embankment!” he 
commanded. “We’ve got to — square this.” 

Binny, intrigued, breathless, sensed that the 
actress hesitated. Then she heard her speak¬ 
ing into the tube: 

“Up and down the Embankment, twice!” 
she ordered. She turned to murmur some¬ 
thing to her companion, but the girl clinging 
to the door handle did not catch it. 

The chauffeur swung the car round a corner 
and looked back as he did so. He caught 
sight of Binny. 

“What in hell! —” he ejaculated. Binny 
burrowed deeper into her collar and gasped. 
Then came inspiration. 

“ ’Sallright!” she assured him. “Thought 
you were a taxi . . . Practising a ‘movie’ 
stunt, that’s all! Go right ahead. I’ll drop 
off in a minute.” 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


IS 


The man stared, but obeyed, growling. 

As they swung on to the dark Embank¬ 
ment, he slowed down and it was borne in 
upon Binny that she must abandon her inten¬ 
tion of speaking to Lola, or else make known 
her presence without delay. Her ears were 
singing, and her fingers were growing cold. 
She tried, uncertainly, to come to a decision. 
From the interior of the car there came the 
sound of quick breathing, of movement, but 
no voices. Still undecided, Binny clung on 
while the car slid the length of the Embank¬ 
ment and turned. And still neither the man 
nor the woman within spoke. 

With an effort Binny took her courage in 
both hands again. She had acted madly 
enough; she might as well carry the thing 
through. She leaned forward, thrusting her 
head in at the open window. 

“Lola Arnaut!” she said. 

But there came no answer. Puzzled, Binny 
leaned nearer, turning the handle. With 
something of difficulty she opened the door, 
squeezed in, and closed it again. She dropped 
onto the seat, breathing hard, and, as her eyes 
became accustomed to the dimness, she real¬ 
ized for the first time that the man was no 
longer in the car. 


16 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


The woman sat in the opposite corner, side¬ 
ways, her face hidden and resting against the 
padded side of the seat. Her furs had slipped 
off one shoulder. The white arm dangled 
limply at her side. Conscious of a sudden, 
heart-shaking apprehension, Binny got up. 

“Lola!” she whispered again, and caught at 
the bare shoulder. Instantly the actress’s 
body sagged forward, her head fell back, 
loosely, horribly. A passing light shone full 
upon her face. The eyes were wide and fixed. 
The mouth was distorted, swollen. Upon it 
was a fleck of blood and foam. Upon the 
slender throat the livid imprint of brutal 
fingers was already discoloring to a bruise. 

Lola Arnaut was dead. 


Ill 


Binny had been brought up in the slums. 
She had seen death, sudden and otherwise, in 
many guises; and it had ceased greatly to 
shock her. She did not, therefore, scream 
now; but she sat down suddenly, feeling 
exceedingly sick. Momentarily she was 
numbed, physically and mentally. Her senses 
were rocking, her vision blurred. She put a 
chilly hand to her head. 

“I’m dopey! . . she whispered. Then 
she shuddered. The light of a street lamp 
illumined the car. Lola’s body had slipped to 
the floor. It was as if Binny looked upon her 
own upturned dead face. . . . 

It shocked her from her stupor. Her mind 
cleared. Only the sensation of physical sick¬ 
ness remained. With one hand clenched tight 
against her mouth, she began rapidly to 
review the events of the last half-hour. 

It was not difficult to hazard a guess at 
what had happened, in view of what little she 
had learned from the snatches of conversation 


18 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


she had heard. Some one had loaned Lola 
valuable jewels. Those jewels had come, 
somehow, into the possession of a dark-eyed 
and unpleasant-featured person named “Gus¬ 
tav.” He had refused to give them up. 
Obviously Lola had been associated with him 
on previous occasions in negotiations of a 
questionable, and possibly “crooked,” charac¬ 
ter. She had known enough about him to be 
able to bring disaster upon him. This she had 
threatened to do. The result . ... 

Binny looked down at the still face, and 
hastily away again, shuddering anew. She 
surmised that the brutal crime had not been 
wholly unpremeditated. She remembered 
that the man had hidden himself in the car 
to await Lola’s coming. Under ordinary cir¬ 
cumstances no one would ever have known he 
was with her to-night. And she had been so 
utterly unprepared for attack that she had 
not been able to utter a cry. 

It was simple — horribly simple. Lola 
would be found dead, strangled, in her car. 
No one would dream of connecting this 
“Gustav” with her death. Farrance, whoever 
he might be, was expecting her, with the 
jewels, at Delorme’s. She had, of course, 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


19 


been seen wearing them, since they had been 
loaned to her for the purpose of impressing 
a new manager. What more plausible than 
that she had been followed, robbed, and 
killed . . . 

And then, suddenly, in a flash, Binny saw 
what her own position might be if found here, 
with Lola’s dead body, in the car. Sheer 
panic brought her to her feet, her face white. 
Then she dropped back again. The car was 
running very swiftly. She could not jump out 
now, unnoticed. In only a moment or two 
they would be in the brilliantly lighted street 
again . . .in only a moment or two the 
chauffeur would be asking for further orders. 
And he had seen her on the footboard 

She must do something, quickly, very 
quickly. She must have a little more time to 
think. She looked down. Lola was lying 
against her feet. In slipping to the ground 
the body had become entirely free of the huge, 
loose fur coat. It lay on the opposite seat. 
Binny’s eye fell upon it, she reached out, 
touched it, drew a quivering breath. The 
next moment she caught it up, discarded her 
own coat and wrapped it round her. As she 
straightened herself, she caught sight of her 


20 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


dim reflection in a small mirror opposite. 
With an effort she stifled a cry, then grew 
very still. In her agitation she had pulled her 
soft little hat off. With her hair pushed back 
off her forehead, in that wonderful fur coat 
she was no longer Binny Clay. She was the 
personification of Lola Arnaut. 

And it was in that moment that the great 
idea leaped, flaming, in her brain. Holding 
the cloak about her, she knelt beside the dead 
woman. “Gustav’s” face rose before her, a 
spasm of rage against him shook her—a queer, 
fierce longing for revenge. She wanted to make 
him pay for the dastardly thing that he had 
done . . . deep down in her heart she 
vowed that he should pay. She thought of 
the man named Farrance. And all the while 
she thought, the plan at the back of her mind 
was maturing — mad, fantastic, grotesque. 

Very gently she wrapped her own shabby 
coat round the dead woman. Very carefully 
she pulled her cloth hat well down over the 
shining hair, right to the brows. Exerting all 
her strength, she raised the body, lifting it 
with an effort to the seat, propped it in the 
corner. With steady fingers she buttoned the 
high collar up about the mouth and chin. 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


21 


Then, deliberately and violently, she pulled 
the check cord. As the car slowed she pushed 
the door open and leaned forward. The 
chauffeur was looking back. She met his eyes 
steadily, and nearly laughed aloud because 
in them there was no faintest flickering of 
suspicion or surprise — merely a wooden 
inquiry. She said, rather breathlessly: 

“You paid to drive in your sleep? Here’s a 
girl been hanging on to the door whimpering 
like a scared rabbit! Says she was doing it 
for the movies, and lost her nerve . . t . 
Looks like having hysterics in a minute and 
wants to go back to Fulgarth Street! You’d 
better beat it back there — Whitechapel way, 
isn’t it? — and forget the speed limit! ” 

Up to that moment her intention had been, 
at any cost, to get taken back to her home. 
Now it occurred to her that, arrived at Ful¬ 
garth Street, the chauffeur would quite nat¬ 
urally ask questions. Afterwards, even if he 
did not discover that the limp figure in the 
corner was that of a dead woman, he might 
talk. 

She moistened dry lips with the tip of 
her tongue. Then she nearly laughed again. 
Chance, that had so strangely ruled to-night’s 


22 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


happenings, took a hand in the game again. 
The chauffeur was speaking protestingly, with 
an air of injury. 

“It’s late, miss! And Mr. Farrance said 
as ’ow I could go off duty the minute I’d 
dropped you at Delorme’s. Got to get right 
down into Gloucester by morning, an’ have 
to garage this car an’ take the motor-bike. 
Bein’ married, miss — Mr. Farrance couldn’t 
let me off any sooner. But ’e promised ...” 

Surreptitiously Binny lifted a hand to her 
throat. A passing taxi caught her glance. 

“Call that cab, then . . . ” Her voice 
held command. She turned back into the car 
as the man obeyed. As he opened the door, 
she bent over the huddled figure, and her 
voice lifted, seemingly in exasperation. 
“Lord! She’s fainted . . . Oh, well, lift 
her into the taxi, then, and, for Heaven’s sake, 
be quick! No, no! Don’t light up! If any 
one recognizes me, we’ll have a crowd 
round . . Here, wait a moment!” 

She helped the man lift Lola, watched him, 
sick with fear, as he bundled her, without a 
glance at the sagging head, into the taxi. The 
voice of the taxi-driver rose protestingly, 
muttering something about not caring about 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


23 


carrying “drunks,” but Binny, cold to the 
heart of her, silenced him peremptorily and 
turned to the chauffeur. 

“Cut along to Delorme’s!” she told him 
breathlessly. “Tell Mr. Farrance I’m coming 

. . No, no, don’t wait. I’ll get another 
cab!” 

The chauffeur grunted, heaved himself into 
his seat and proceeded on his way. Binny, 
faint, and with trembling knees, stumbled into 
the taxi. 

“Thirteen Fulgarth Street,” she com¬ 
manded, her face hidden in the collar. “And 
get a move on. My friend’s sick.” 

The man opened his mouth, shut it, and 
after a moment’s hesitation started the cab. 
At thirteen Fulgarth Street he stopped. 

Binny tumbled out, thrust a ten-shilling 
note into his hand, and whispered: “Carry her 
up for me — quietly. Fourth floor. Don’t 
want any one to hear — landlady prides her¬ 
self she’s extra respectable ...” 

The man grinned in the darkness, gave a 
shrug, and, reaching into the cab, hauled out 
the limp figure. Binny, shuddering, led the 
way up the dirty wooden stairs. Still in dark¬ 
ness they found her room — the taxi-driver 


24 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 

dumped his burden into the nearest chair and 
backed out. 

Binny stood motionless until, far down in 
the street below, she heard the taxi start again 
and go throbbing on its way. Then, fiercely, 
she stifled a sob, locked the door, and tipped 
a chair-back under its handle. 

Half an hour later she emerged, silently, 
from the silent room. She wore Lola Arnaut’s 
clothes, her jewelled watch, her rings. She 
carried her big silver chain purse. Stumbling 
down the stairs, she knew that never, in all 
her life, would she forget that half-hour. She 
felt like a ghoul — the touch of the scented 
clothes made her flesh creep. But her white 
lips were set grimly; in her unnaturally bright 
eyes was a feverish, unwavering resolution. 

How long it was before she reached 
Delorme’s little, rose-lit restaurant she did not 
know. Her pulses were throbbing and her 
blood hot as fire in her veins. She saw her¬ 
self in the huge mirrors, and it was as if Lola 
Arnaut’s ghost moved there. 

A waiter hurried forward. Two men seated 
at a corner table rose quickly and came 
towards her. Interested glances followed her. 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


25 


And she went her way like a woman in a 
dream. One of the men was young, clean-cut, 
with blue eyes that warmed her with their 
glance even at this moment. The other was 
short, fat, and benign of aspect. 

: The young man said her name, eagerly: 
“Lola!” His hands caught hers. “Why, 
you’re ill — cold as ice . He put her 

into a chair. 

For a moment she sat quite still. Then she 
laughed. “Oh, no! Only — horribly hun¬ 
gry!” she said. She met his amazed stare, 
and giggled helplessly. She knew that at that 
moment she was on the verge of hysterics. 
But the first mouthful of hot soup wrought a 
change. Halfway through the meal she had 
command of herself. 

“Had a trying day!” she explained. “Not 
much time for meals.” She looked vaguely 
from the benign man to the young one and 
smiled. “Where — where’s Gustav?” 

The little man waved his hands. “Our 
friend Gustav is distrait to-night . . . He 
was here but a moment since, much concerned 
at your delay, Miss Lola. He’ll be back pres¬ 
ently. Meantime here’s the rough contract, 
for you to sign. Mr. Farrance will witness 


26 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


it — and Gustav, when he returns. It will be 
put in proper order, in due course. And may 
we both have the best of luck when you’re 
under my management, young lady!” 

He pushed a paper towards her, and a foun¬ 
tain pen. Mechanically she took the latter, 
held it poised. She hesitated, laughed — then 
laid the pen to the paper. It was all a mad, 
big bluff. But for to-night, at least, she was 
the popular actress. The dead woman who 
would be found at thirteen Fulgarth Street 
was Binny Clay. With a flourish she signed: 
“Lola Arnaut! ” and looked up into Farrance’s 
face. “The wine’s gone to my head!” she 
said. “I — I can’t write straight! . .... .” 
And then paused. 

Van Bevan was waving his wine-glass to 
a man who had just entered the room. Binny 
turned slowly. Her eyes smiled into Gustav’s 
suddenly ashen face. Very slowly she held 
out a welcoming hand. Lola’s jewels gleamed 
upon it, and as if impelled against his will 
Gustav came forward. His mouth was dry. 
There was terror and bewilderment in his 
eyes. Binny flourished the paper before him. 

“I’ve signed the contract!” she declared 
gaily. “And now we’re going to celebrate! 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


27 


Mr. Van Bevan, go and find that waiter! I 
want some more champagne!” 

As Van Bevan jumped up to obey and went 
across the room, Binny leaned across to Far- 
rance. Gustav had dropped limply into a 
chair, still staring at her. 

“Mr. Farrance,” she said confidentially, but 
with a catch in her voice, “I’m more than 
obliged for those jewels. They’ve done the 
trick. Gustav has been looking after them 
for me. I want you to take them back now, 
before Mr. Van Bevan comes back! Gustav 
— please.” 

She smiled anew into the amazed malevo¬ 
lence of the man’s dark eyes. Very slowly 
he put his hand into his pocket and drew forth 
a flat, wide case. Binny opened it, and with 
something very like a sob pushed it across 
the table to Farrance. 


IV 


For a little while after that Binny was not 
at all clear what was happening. She 
knew that Farrance was speaking to her; that 
Van Bevan had come back, beaming, a waiter 
following — that Gustav sat immovable, star¬ 
ing at her. 

All these things she knew, yet she felt far 
away, like a person looking on at her own 
image playing a part. Just exactly what was 
going to happen next she did not know, and, 
at the moment, did not particularly care. 

Up to the present she had been actuated 
solely by a fierce desire to revenge her sister 
— to bring her horrible, unnecessary, and 
cruel death to the door of the man who had 
murdered her — to see that the other man, 
Farrance, was not robbed. Lola had wished 
that. Whatever of wrong she had done during 
her intimacy with Gustav, whatever her short¬ 
comings morally, she had meant — had fought 
—to act squarely by the man who had helped 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


29 


her; who had, in all trust, given into her 
charge, for her adornment, jewels which, 
because of their history, were priceless. 

For a little while it was as if the soul of 
Lola had entered into Binny. Utterly reck¬ 
less, finding a grim, terrible humour in the 
situation, she had played her part. Now the 
strain was beginning to tell. She sagged in 
her chair, and Farrance, looking at her, broke 
off in the middle of a sentence and frowned. 

“You’re awfully done up!” he asserted boy¬ 
ishly. “You ought to go straight home, and 
to bed!” 

Binny smiled at him vaguely. In a de¬ 
tached sort of way she decided that his eyes 
were awfully nice, his clean-cut young face 
very good to look upon. For a second time 
she was conscious of a glow of warmth. She 
blinked drowsily, becoming instantly aware 
that his frown deepened to disapproval and 
half-startled wonder. Unexpectedly she found 
his hand, long and fine, and sensitively strong, 
closing upon her wrist. 

“You’re not yourself, little girl!” he urged; 
and, with a jerk, Binny roused herself. From 
her other side the man Gustav laughed, 
shortly, unpleasantly, his dark eyes gleaming. 


30 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


Immediately she was upon the defensive. 
She clutched frantically after her self-control, 
mustered anew her failing faculties. She had 
a game to play still — just what it might be 
she was not quite sure yet — but she meant to 
play it. She was still Lola Arnaut. She 
would continue to be Lola Arnaut for a little 
while longer. 

She looked, searchingly, for suspicion in 
Farrance’s eyes, superbly ignoring Gustav, 
and, finding only a still faintly flickering dis¬ 
approval, coloured faintly, smiling up at him 
in deprecation. 

“Fm not . . . not quite!” she agreed, with 
an audacity which surprised herself. “But, 
then, what girl could be — under the circum¬ 
stances?” 

Van Bevan, filling her glass, joined in her 
rather hysterical laugh. He exuded amia¬ 
bility, and she drank, gratefully, smiling at 
him. “Not one in a million!” he was assur¬ 
ing her. “Not one in a million, m’dear! 
You’ve the chance of a lifetime in that con¬ 
tract— the chance of a lifetime, and don’t 
you forget it! If you’ve got it in you to make 
good — really good — something better an’ 
deeper’n just the beauty stunt, you’ll do it 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 31 

under me! A chance in a lifetime, my girl 
— a chance in a lifetime! . . . ” 

He spoke somewhat truculently, and Binny 
sensed a threat, but he had dined well, and 
he waved his glass at her benevolently. 

She responded in kind. “I know. I 
promise I’ll work very hard — really!” 

She smiled grimly, yet in the same moment 
her eyes grew intent A little breath fluttered 
and caught in her throat, the colour deepened 
to brilliant rose in her cheek. She remem¬ 
bered how she had envied Lola — had 
watched her, night after night, fascinated by 
her beauty, irritated in her own artist’s soul 
by the lack of artistic power in the other girl. 
She remembered Mrs. Jenkins’s words — they 
hummed insistently, almost as if spoken, at 
the back of her mind: “Lola Arnaut — she 
’asn’t no talent, an’ no voice . . you’d 
leave her at the ropes where singin’s con¬ 
cerned . . .” 

She herself had talent, of a sort. She felt 
it, stirring in her, like a live thing. But, 
greater than this, she had a voice. Not a 
great voice, perhaps, but a good one. Un¬ 
trained, ill-used, but a voice. Her throat 
swelled even now — she recollected how she 


32 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


had sung Lola Arnaut’s songs, over and over 
again, in the solitude of her one dingy, dis¬ 
heartening room, alilt and aglow with the 
melody. 

She looked at Van Bevan over her glass 
with a new gleam of speculation in her eyes, 
her delicate lower lip caught between her 
teeth, her nostrils ever so slightly dilated. 
She hardly knew what thoughts were forming 
at the back of her mind, but once more she 
had a grip of herself, the mists had faded 
from about her, her brain was clear, alert. 
Slowly it was being borne in upon her that 
there was something really remarkable in 
Farrance’s and Van Bevan’s unquestioning 
acceptance of her in her role of Lola Arnaut. 
What Gustav was thinking, she could not 
guess. She did not try to. 

Surreptitiously, sideways, she glanced at 
herself in one of the many mirrors; and, 
imperceptibly, she shivered. It seemed im¬ 
possible that it could be herself — Binny 
Clay, of dreary, dingy Fulgarth Street — 
reflected there. After all, the fact that these 
men believed her to be the other girl might 
be remarkable, but it was easy to understand. 
With Lola’s clothes she seemed to have 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


33 


assumed the other woman’s characteristics 
and mannerisms. Watching Lola from her 
humble perch in the gallery, not once but 
many times, particularly of late, Binny had 
unconsciously learned her little tricks of 
movement, of facial expression. Only half 
consciously now, born mimic that she 
undoubtedly was, she was employing those 
tricks, subtly, wonderfully. 

She was living, actually, the part she was 
playing. In her present mood, her abnormal 
condition of mind, she was Lola Arnaut . . 
the living, breathing personification of a dead 
woman. She knew it, intuitively. Knew it 
because of the way Farrance and Van Bevan 
spoke to her; knew it more surely because of 
the look of fear and real horror that still 
lingered in Gustav’s eyes. 

She glowed with a curious triumph, naively 
proud of herself for “getting away” so bril¬ 
liantly with an impersonation which one 
would have thought impossible. But, until 
this moment, beyond to-night’s ending, she 
had not thought. She had been prepared to 
play the part of Cinderella in conventional 
fashion, if with a difference. Throughout she 
had acted like a person just a little mad. Her 


34 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


object had been to terrify, utterly, the man 
who was her sister’s murderer, and then, dra¬ 
matically, to denounce him. 

She had signed the Van Bevan contract in 
a spirit of hysterical excitement and sheer 
bravado; for the same reason she had con¬ 
tinued her impersonation of Lola long after 
it was necessary. But now . . . she drew 
a long, deep breath. She looked down into 
her glass, and up into Van Bevan’s red, jolly 
face; and then down again at Farrance’s long, 
fine fingers that were still resting upon her 
wrist. New ideas, new desires assailed her. 
She began to tremble a little, her eyes dilat¬ 
ing. A voice that urged, while it mocked, 
seemed to be at her ear: Binny Clay! Binny 
Clay! Binny Clay was lying, very still, in a 
dirty top room in Fulgarth Street .. .. . and 
Binny Clay was dead / 


V 


“I never knew you were so fearfully thin 
before, Lola!” Young Farrance’s voice cut 
sharply across that other whispering, insistent, 
persistent one, and Binny looked up at him 
with a startled gasp. 

Suddenly, painfully, she was aware of bare 
shoulders that showed unnatural hollows, for 
all their grace; of arms too sharp at the elbows, 
so small at the wrists that they might have 
been a child’s. The colour flamed in her 
cheeks and died again. She essayed a laugh, 
and choked on it. 

Farrance’s hand tightened, masterfully, 
upon her wrist. “You’re feverish, too!” he 
declared. “Your hand’s like fire . ... I 
don’t believe you’re well!” 

Binny laughed again, somewhat shakily. 
“I don’t believe I am. Been — been working 
like the dickens, you know . . . and in our 
profession there’s no time to get fat. Not until 
you’re at the top of the bill, anyway! . 

And I’m not, by a jugful!” 

Was it Binny Clay who was speaking? Or 


36 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


had the soul of Lola failed to die with her 
body, and come whispering, haunting, to dwell 
side by side with that of her sister? Binny 
shivered, staring fascinated at the bubbles in 
her glass. But she went on, steadily, even 
lightly: “I’m not, and you know it!” She 
checked Van Bevan’s hasty protest with a 
determined hand. She was looking straight 
ahead of her, visualizing Lola as she had 
seen her, read about her, heard of her from 
various sources. She had gauged the other 
girl’s limitations with shrewd accuracy. She 
had known that her beauty had taken her 
where she was; she had known, too, that she 
could go no further. Lola Arnaut must have 
“fallen down” on the Van Bevan contract. 
Farrance’s influence, perhaps, and Farrance’s 
jewels, had won it for her. But she must have 
failed. Binny knew; and, knowing, spoke as 
Lola should have spoken, but, most assuredly, 
would not have done. 

“You know it! And I know it! I — I’ve 
— so far — been just a passing fancy of the 
public. I’ve held them ’cos I’m — more than 
merely pretty! It — as you said just now — 
has been just a sort of ‘beauty stunt.’ ” She 
looked up slowly, without quite knowing why, 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


37 


and met, instead of Van Bevan’s, Farrance’s 
steady gaze. A little flicker of colour touched 
her cheeks. There was an odd, deep glow in 
her own eyes. “All the same, I’ve got more in 
me than just that — I think. I — I shall be 
quite a different person if — when — I come 
under your management, Mr. Van Bevan.” 

Van Bevan looked at her quickly, opened 
his lips, and closed them again. Farrance’s 
gaze, deeply puzzled, oddly pleased, continued 
to hold hers. 

She smiled at him, suddenly — and again 
without knowing why. “I do want to make 
good!” she asserted, and there was a childish, 
eager catch in her voice. 

Farrance released her wrist and sat back 
in his chair. He was more completely per¬ 
plexed than he had ever been in his life. The 
girl he believed to be Lola Arnaut was show¬ 
ing him a new side of her character; he was 
beginning to suspect depths hitherto un¬ 
probed. He sensed a change in her inexpli¬ 
cable as it was intriguing. So far he had 
never attempted, seriously, to analyse his 
feeling for Lola Arnaut. Like a score of 
other young men of his own kind, more or 
less idlers, and decidedly more than less moths 


38 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


about the footlights, he had met her, and had 
subsequently believed himself to be in love 
with her. Perhaps she had selected him for 
greater favour than the others because she 
had realized, instinctively, that he was wholly 
dependable, clean-minded, clean of heart, and 
dead straight. 

Dudley Farrance was a man any woman 
might have welcomed as a friend, not neces¬ 
sarily as a lover. There was something boyish 
about him, something fresh, and fine, and 
wholesome. If his appetite for gaiety and 
beauty was keen, it was not a jaded appetite. 
In Lola Arnaut he had found a creature of 
subtle allure, a queer, irresistible charm. She 
was not usual; nor was her beauty usual. If 
it had been, she could not have “starred” 
without a shred of real talent to support her. 
She had interested him. In some way he 
could not define, she had made a strangely 
pathetic appeal to his chivalry. She had 
never seemed quite happy; never quite sure 
of the future. 

Because of this, he had wanted to help her. 
Because of this, and because, intuitively, he 
had disliked and mistrusted Gustav De Mille, 
whom he regarded as a distinctly undesirable 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


39 


intimate of Lola’s, he had shown a reckless 
disregard of good sense and worldly wisdom 
by loaning her jewels that were priceless by 
reason, at any rate, of their associations, 
so that she might make a “hit” with Van 
Bevan. It was not without relief that he felt 
the case snug and safe in his pocket now. 
And it was by no means in his customary 
frame of mind concerning her that he sat 
regarding her now. He was frankly puzzled. 
But not for one moment was the suspicion 
borne in upon him that this girl was not the 
real Lola; he was simply conscious of a new 
rising of warmth within him for her, a revival 
of his first eager admiration for her, this time 
with some subtle difference at its root which, 
for the life of him, he could not define. 

The Lola of yesterday had stood, confessed, 
a butterfly, desiring to rank among the stars 
without working for her place, content to 
depend upon her beauty for her popularity. 
The Lola of to-night had different aspirations. 
He knew it, instinctively and with certainty, 
and wondered afresh. Her assurance to Van 
Bevan that she wanted success, and meant to 
work for it, had rung true. Farrance glanced 
at the latter. He was staring at the girl, 


40 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


his lips pursed, in his eyes something of that 
speculation which had showed in hers not 
many moments previously. 

Across the table Gustav De Mille laughed 
— suddenly, sharply, sardonically. If his 
glance at Binny was furtive and fearful, it 
was also malicious. Nor was she unaware of 
it, and while the breath choked in her throat 
she gritted her teeth fiercely in a growing 
determination to combat the difficulties in her 
path and to conquer them. Farrance sent 
De Mille a glance of distaste; Binny did not 
even turn her head. 

Van Bevan chuckled. “That being so,” he 
observed, “let’s talk business for a moment 
right now!” 

Binny flung him an apprehensive glance. 
Farrance, increasingly aware of her weariness, 
exclaimed protestingly; but Van Bevan went 
on, speaking earnestly, leaning with his elbows 
on the table and cupping his three chins com¬ 
fortably in his palms. 

“In that contract,” he announced — “as 
you know — you’ve bound yourself to play 
through the run of the new show I’m putting 
on. It’s not goin’ to be so easy, by a long 
shot, m’dear, as the stuff you’ve been putting 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


41 


over up to now. In fact — as perhaps you 
guessed — I hesitated over makin’ that con¬ 
tract quite a bit!” He paused. 

Binny looked up and down again. Her hands 
were tightly locked, her lips compressed. 

Van Bevan proceeded. “I decided for it, 
in the end, because you’re still being talked 
about as a looker. More than an ordinary 
looker, at that. And I wondered, maybe, if 
there mightn’t be a bit of something in you 
worth stirring up — something more than just 
bein’ a beauty. That’s all you are at present, 
Lola, you know. Every bit all!” 

Farrance, flushing a little, made a quick 
gesture. 

Van Bevan caught his glance, and added 
hastily: “No offence meant, m’dear! We’re 
all friends here — with your interests at heart 
— or I wouldn’t be talking this way. And 
you yourself brought up the subject of hard 
work and success, you know!” He spread 
out his plump hands, nodding ponderously. 
“You’ll have to do a mighty lot of the first 
if you ever hope to bite off even a small chunk 
of the second! You’re a beauty all right, all 
right!. I’m the first” — he bowed gallantly — 
“to admit it. But beauty ain’t what makes 


42 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


a really successful actress, m’dear — and don’t 
you forget it! It’s a draw for a bit — but 
not forever, not by a long chalk! You’ve 
about six months, more or less, to run on the 
beauty tack . .. . but that’s all!” He 
nodded again, his little eyes shrewd, but not 
unkindly. “I’m giving you the straight goods, 
Lola. I’ve made this contract with you 
because you’ll be worth what I’m paying you 
for six months — even, maybe, for half the 
run of the show. You’ll have a chance to 
show if you can work — and if it’s worth your 
while working! But I tell you, frankly, I’m 
not bringin’ you forward like I would if you 
could do anything! Lord knows, I wish you 
could!” He sighed suddenly, and heavily. 

Once more Binny opened her lips, once more 
closed them. She was, as she herself would 
have expressed it, sitting tight, and absorbing 
from his conversation a great deal of infor¬ 
mation. 

Farrance, observing her, was struck anew 
by the rather strained intensity of her expres¬ 
sion, an earnestness beneath the deepening 
brightness of her eyes, and checked, without 
quite knowing why, an impulse to end Van 
Bevan’s discourse. 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


43 


The latter added, a shade dismally: “I wish 
you could, Lola! I’m needing somebody who 
can do something. We go into rehearsal 
Monday, and the second lead’s fallen out ill! 
Pneumonia! Little Lottie Carrall, you know 
... Poor kid! Nothing over-much to 
look at, but a way with her — somethin’ 
quaint — not quite usual. Ivo Dallas has 
written her songs, and he’s gone all out in 
the new show. Giving us some really good 
stuff. You know his style — whimsical — 
fantastical—-rather delicate. Not a girl in 
a dozen could get away with it really success¬ 
fully, and not one out of a shop that I know 
of who wouldn’t make a howling mess of it. 
Ivo’s ‘Daisies’ was typical ...” 

“Daisies! ” Binny looked up sharply. The 
song in question was one of extreme popu¬ 
larity, an airy nothing, which had been mur¬ 
dered alike by many of the performers who 
had aspired to it, and by the public at large. 
Impulsively, half contemptuously, scarcely 
realizing what she was doing, she began to 
hum the first few bars. Farrance sat upright 
and Van Bevan ceased to stare despondently 
at the empty champagne bottle. Binny’s 
voice, subdued, yet clearly sweet, trilled up 


44 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


softly over the lilting lines. ... It ceased 
abruptly as she met the astonished eyes bent 
upon her, and she grew hot, then cold. She 
laughed, shakily, yet with a certain trium¬ 
phant challenge. 

She made a quick movement to rise. “I 
guess,” she observed, “the champagne — and 
the contract — have gone to my head! ^ 
I’m sorry!” 

“You needn’t be!” Van Bevan rose, too, 
after a glance about at the hovering waiters 
and almost deserted dining-room. He spoke 
grimly, with shrewd eyes upon the flushed 
face of the girl. “I’m beginning to think, 
young woman, that you’ve been hiding your 
light under a bushel! I’d like to hear you 
sing ‘Daisies’ — with an accompaniment.” 
He glanced for a moment thoughtfully at 
Gustav De Mille’s dark profile, and added: 
“With Ivo Dallas’s accompaniment. . . . 
How about cuttin’ across to his flat now? 
Won’t be taking you out of your way, since 
yours is in the next block w l#l C’m 
along!” 

“Good Heavens! Nol” Binny’s protest 
was desperate, scared. As she uttered it, 
she met Gustav De Mille’s mocking eyes, and 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 45 


flushed, stopped, caught unsteady hands up 
against her throat. 

Van Bevan laid a firm hand upon her arm. 
“Come along! ” he commanded again, and now 
his voice held authority. 

Binny, after one despairing glance at the 
decidedly disapproving Farrance, obeyed like 
a woman in a dream. Where Ivo Dallas’s 
flat — or that which was supposed to be her 
own — might be, she did not know. She did 
not know even after she had arrived in it, 
and found herself greeting a small, middle- 
aged man with protruding dark eyes, a sensi¬ 
tive mouth, and a forehead over which a thick 
lock of hair hung lankly. 

She gathered, dazedly, that he was Ivo 
Dallas. As dazedly she shook hands with him 

— knew that he was regarding her with a 
sort of intolerant scorn that rather nettled her 

— and found herself being propelled towards 
a piano by Van Bevan. 

“Daisies!” Dallas’s voice came to her as 
from a great distance. “My dear Van Bevan 

— I know any one can — er — sing ‘Daisies/ 
but, surely, it’s not Miss Arnaut’s type . . .?” 

In the background Gustav De Mille 
laughed. The sound, as before, made Binny 


46 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


shiver. But it brought her back to her sur¬ 
roundings, made her grit her teeth savagely. 
Her throat went up. Her eyes snapped. 

“Never know what you can do till you try! ” 
she asserted flippantly. “Mr. Van Bevan’s 
got a hunch I’ve not been giving Scarlossi all 
I’m capable of . . . seems to fancy ^ w 
She broke off. 

Ivo Dallas, at the piano, had presented 
an uninterested back, and was striking the 
first chords of the song. Binny’s voice caught 
up with them — broke — and rose suddenly, 
clear, unwavering. 

Thereafter “Daisies” was sung as it had 
not been sung since Lottie Carrall had made 
of it the most popular song of the year. Binny 
danced the second refrain. Her cheeks were 
brilliantly flushed, her eyes blazing. She 
danced as she had danced before her cracked 
mirror — dreaming dreams. And she came 
back to earth at Van Bevan’s roar. 

“Suffering cats! What in thunder has been 
the big idea, anyway — kiddin’ the lot of us 
you hadn’t a note in your throat? . . . An’ 
dance! . : . .. Ivo, what about it? Am I 
drunk, or can she sing — and can she 
dance?” 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


47 


“Can she not?” Ivo retorted with 
brevity. He pulled a loose score from the 
top of the piano and handed it to the girl. 
“Try that — run through the words and 
then improvise a dance. Ready?” 

The score shook in Binny’s hands, but her 
eyes were clear. She hummed the words 
falteringly, uncertainly, the music appealing, 
yet strange in her ears. But with the dance 
she found her poise anew. At the end of it 
she swayed. Farrance, catching her arm, 
steadied her. 

Van Bevan lumbered heavily to his feet. 
He looked dazed. “If you can keep that sort 
of thing up — you’ve got a career before you, 
young woman— and I’ve got a new find!” 

Ivo, running his fingers through his hair, 
regarded her with a new respect. But she was 
only aware of the grip of Farrance’s hand, 
and the burning malevolence of Gustav De 
Milled eyes. 

Farrance drew her towards the door. 
“YouVe had just about enough!” he com¬ 
mented rather grimly. “We’ll see you across 
to your own flat right away . ... . unless 
you others are going to stay here?” 

“I am!” Van Bevan declared. “Got a 


48 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


whole heap to talk over with Ivo, here . 
what about you, De Mille?” 

“Going with Lola!” 

It was the first time Rinny had heard him 
speak, and she looked at him quickly. She 
nodded vaguely to Ivo and Van Bevan; then 
she was in the street. In the vestibule of the 
opposite block of flats to Dallas’s, she hesi¬ 
tated, then, with another catch of her breath 
and a little grim smile, heard Farrance ask for 
her key. She hardly understood at first, then, 
distastefully, fumbled in the bag she carried 
— Lola’s bag. A key was there. Farrance 
took it, opened the door, and stood aside. 

“We’ll say ‘good-night’! ” he said. “Con¬ 
gratulations will wait till to-morrow!” 

Again Binny hesitated, then she stepped 
across the threshold. The flat was on the 
ground floor. She watched, instead of closing 
the door, as Farrance drew De Mille away, 
and out into the night. Then, suddenly, she 
was aware that the latter had broken from 
him, and was coming back. He was facing her 
before she could close the door. His eyes 
were blazing. 

“What’s all this mean?” he demanded in a 
hoarse whisper. “What game are you play- 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


49 


ing? Who are you — where’s — where’s 
Lola? Where’s Lola, do you hear — Lola 
Arnaut?” 

Binny wanted to close her eyes. Instead, 
deliberately, she stared levelly into his. “My 
dear Gustav!” she retorted — and marvelled 
at the cool mockery of her own voice. “Have 
you been drinking to drown the memory of 
your — sins? . . . Looks rather like it to 
me! I am Lola Arnaut! ” 


VI 


“I AM Lola Arnaut!” Binny found herself 
repeating the words, under her breath, over 
and over again, as, having slammed the door, 
she stood leaning against the panels. 

“1 ant Lola Arnaut ... I am Lola 
Arnaut . . . I am . . 

She stopped, gasping. For a moment she 
wondered if, perhaps, she had become a little 
mad. Then that sense of humour which had 
carried her through many more or less desper¬ 
ate situations since her very babyhood swept 
back upon her. With a shaky little laugh 
she began to grope for the electric switch; 
and, finding it, grew quiet again. 

This situation was more than desperate. It 
was unique. She had witnessed a murder. 
She had stepped into the murdered woman’s 
shoes. She had bluffed intimates of that 
woman into the belief that she had every right 
to the name she claimed. Her identity had 
remained unquestioned, except by the man 
De Mille; and she had, out of sheer bravado, 
prompted by something within her to which 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 51 

she could give no name, deliberately defied 
him. 

She had declared herself Lola Arnaut. As 
far as the world to-night was concerned, she 
was Lola Arnaut. There was no reason, that 
she could see at that particular moment, why 
she should not remain Lola Arnaut for all 
time, if she chose. The thought made her 
draw her breath again, then hold it for a long 
minute’s space. Her face flushed vividly, then 
paled. Her eyes were wide, half scared, 
half eager, wholly calculating. Her mouth 
twitched once, then set in a hard little line of 
pink. 

“Why not?” The words leaped up within 
her, startlingly, like the unexpected attack of 
some live thing — instinctively she threw out 
her hands, then let them fall limply to her 
sides. 

She had been staring straight before her; 
now she let her glance wander over the tiny 
hall, with its flower-shaded electric bulbs, its 
strip of soft grey and rose carpet, its square 
Oriental rug and tiny tiled table. The heavy 
scent of dying flowers was all about her — 
absolute quiet reigned. She wondered, mov¬ 
ing slowly forward, if Lola had a maid — if 


52 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


so, where she might be. Uncertain, hesitant, 
she crossed the hall. She touched the handle 
of the door nearest to her, and as it yielded 
felt for the switch within. The leaping light 
revealed just such a room as she might have 
expected Lola Arnaut to possess — a nest 
of rose hangings and cushions, of padded 
chairs, deep-mattressed bed, all ribbons and 
lace covers, and rose-satin eiderdown . . . 
a toilet-table of white, with a rose-shaded 
cover, a litter of scent-bottles, powder-boxes, 
ivory brushes, and an absurd pincushion with 
a diminutive crinolined doll on the top. 

A white cat, superbly coated, lay on a white 
rug before an almost dead fire. Binny’s 
glance, resting upon it, grew cynically amused. 
Everything, from the swan’s-down-edged slip¬ 
pers set ready beside a white-and-rose Japan¬ 
ese kimono to the cat and the expensive 
perfume which hung about the room, was for 
effect. Deliberately, very carefully, Lola had 
set about creating an atmosphere. Once, 
Binny remembered, she had been enthusi¬ 
astically described as “roselike in her loveli¬ 
ness, with the very fragrance of living roses 
clinging about her . . . ” Hence the back¬ 
ground, Binny decided—exquisitely artificial; 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


S3 


the merest trifle overdone. Lola had evi¬ 
dently aimed at surroundings expensive and 
exotic . . . Lola . . ... 

Binny put her hand quickly to her throat, 
her eyes half closing, the set line of her mouth 
quivering. Assailed violently by the recollec¬ 
tion of Lola as she had last seen her, a pitiful, 
crumpled heap, with wide, unseeing eyes, and 
cruelly contorted beauty, she recoiled anew 
from a situation which was devilish in its fan¬ 
tastic combination of impossibility and sim¬ 
plicity. 

Presently she went slowly to the long 
white-framed mirror, and stood looking long 
and searchingly at her reflection. And once 
more amazement swept down upon her at the 
likeness she bore to the dead woman; amaze¬ 
ment not untinged with awe. It merged into a 
dreamy, detached sense of satisfaction, of 
wistful self-admiration. Binny had known 
Lola Arnaut lovely; she had never even 
thought herself pretty. But now . t . 

She brought herself to earth with a quick 
shudder, turned away, and crossed the room 
again. Outside the door she hesitated, glanc¬ 
ing at the others that surrounded the little 
hall. She tried one at last, carefully, and 


54 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


this time found herself within a room 
charming, if incongruous, with its arrange¬ 
ment of Jacobean sideboard and table, rose¬ 
wood bureau, a divan covered with a brilliant 
Oriental rug, and a cretonne-covered screen. 
An open box of chocolates was on one of the 
chairs, a tray with syphons, glasses, and 
decanter on the table. The bureau was open, 
displaying a medley of letters, bills, newspaper 
cuttings, a memorandum tablet, and a big, 
rather beautifully bound suede diary. 

Binny was conscious once more of a lump in 
her throat. At the same time the bureau and 
its untidy contents caught her attention 
immediately, drew her to it as with a magnet. 
In a moment she found herself sitting in a 
low chair in front of it; timorously she 
touched a paper here and there — picked up 
a newspaper cutting, scanning it rapidly — 
smoothed her hand over the soft surface of 
the diary. She discovered that it had a tiny 
hasp, and that it was locked. Again her 
cheeks flushed, a gleam of interest dawned in 
her eyes. Slowly, as if impelled against her 
will, she turned and looked into those eyes 
reflected in the oval mirror above the mantel¬ 
piece behind her. 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


55 


“I wonder” — she whispered, just above 
her breath, scarcely realizing that she spoke 
aloud — “I wonder — could I? Could I?” 

Her lip quivered, and she caught it between 
her teeth. She touched the diary again, felt 
the hasp. It resisted her efforts to open it, 
and finally she bethought herself of the expen¬ 
sive bag that still dangled from her wrist. 
She remembered that the latchkey which she 
had found there had been with other keys 
upon a small ring. With the same feeling 
of repugnance she had experienced when she 
had sought for it to admit herself, she felt 
for that ring again, drawing it forth at last. 
She found the key of the diary at once — an 
absurdly tiny thing — and unlocked the diary. 

Her cheeks and eyes were fever-bright now. 
Her hands shook as she turned the first page. 
She began to read, and read on, until the 
sonorous striking of some big clock in the 
flat brought her struggling stiffly to her feet. 
She was shivering all over, chilled through, 
trembling. She closed the diary and locked 
it. Holding it against her, she felt among 
the other keys until she fpund that which 
made fast the bureau. Then, turning out the 
light, she scurried, panting, across the hall 


56 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


to the rose-and-white warmth of the bedroom. 

With the diary still held close up against her 
breast, almost jealously, she went straight to 
the toilet-table. But now, looking at her reflec¬ 
tion, it was as if she had forgotten she was 
looking at herself — at Binny Clay. To her 
it seemed that Lola Arnaut stood before her. 
It was to Lola Arnaut she spoke, very low, 
rather shakily. 

“If it hadn’t been for this” — she lifted 
the diary and laid it among the scents and 
powders on the table before her — “it 
wouldn’t have been possible — not really. I 
might have taken your place — as I took it 
to-night. I might even have held it for a 
while. But it would have been only for a little 
while. I’d nothing to back me — no idea 
of how you’ve lived, or what you’ve done 
. . i*i I’d have made a slip, sooner or 
later . ,. Pretty soon, I guess . . . But 

now ...” She paused and touched the 
diary again, lips compressed, brows bent. “It 
is possible — now! With what this can tell 
me — I could carry it through. I know I 
could. I know ...” she looked up into 
the mirrored eyes. “And I’m going to! It’s 
been done before, heaps of times. It’s just 
a question of nerve — and luck! And I feel, 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


57 


somehow — you won’t mind, Lola ...” She 
checked on the utterance of the name, and 
put her hand over her lips. Then she laughed, 
unsteadily. “And I’m not doing it only for 
myself — only for what I may gain by it. 
I’m thinking of you, too. Of to-night — its 
horror ... of that man; that awful, awful 
man ...” She sobbed suddenly. Leaning 
both hands upon the dressing-table, she 
brought her face close to her reflection. 

“I’ll make him suffer!” she promised, pas¬ 
sionately, tensely. “Suffer — to the end — for 
the unspeakable thing he has done! There’ll 
be that to my credit, anyway! Even he isn’t 
sure ... he can’t be! They all thought 
me Lola Arnaut to-night. The world will 
think me so to-morrow. I said to — him — 
a little while ago that I am Lola Arnaut — 
and from to-night, from this very moment, I 
will be her!” 

She swayed upright, threw out her hands, 
then, stumbling across to the bed, flung herself, 
limp and chill, and utterly exhausted, across 
it. And presently, with rose-satin eiderdown 
huddled comforting about her, the white cat 
purring at her feet, and the scent of roses 
drenching her with its sweetness, she fell 
asleep. 


VII 


That night Binny slept the sleep of utter 
exhaustion. She roused at the sound of loud 
knocking upon the door, and the slow, sharp 
chiming of a clock. For a full minute, 
huddled into the eiderdown, heavy-eyed, 
dishevelled, she sat upright upon the bed, 
struggling rather wildly to collect her scat¬ 
tered thoughts. Last night’s happenings 
seemed like an impossible dream. It was not 
until she looked down at her crumpled frock, 
at the white, still somnolent cat, at the pink 
eiderdown, that her mind began to clear. 
Recollection leaped at her, almost terrifying, 
and she turned scared eyes in the direction 
from which the sound of knocking came. 

Who was there? She was asking herself 
the question as, with a little shiver, she slid 
her slim feet to the floor and stood, instinc¬ 
tively bracing her whole body, as if to meet 
some new difficulty. By the time she reached 
the little hall door, she had all her wits about 
her. The caution of hard and amazing experi- 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


59 


ence was in her eyes as she opened it. Upon 
the threshold a somewhat blowsy young 
woman, with a pleasant face and a pair of 
shrewd eyes, was standing. She expressed 
herself, cheerily, as being immensely relieved 
at Binny’s tardy appearance, passed her, pull¬ 
ing her coat unfastened as she went, and drew 
a deep breath. 

“Thought maybe you’d been murdered, or 
something!” she announced. “You don’t 
often sleep so heavily. Got a head?” She 
contemplated the slender, ruffled figure a 
shade curiously. Binny, though fully dressed, 
was shuddering and stiff with cold. She 
opened her lips to answer, but the woman 
checked her. 

“There! But I can see you have! Galli¬ 
vantin’ about after the show . . . I’ve told 
you you’re not up to that sort of thing, you 
know! Look here, go and get undressed and 
into a wrapper — Lor’, but it’s not like you 
to sleep in your clothes! That’s a fact! And 
I’ll turn the geyser on for your bath and get 
you a cup of coffee in no time! It’ll warm you 
up and clear your head ^ l#J w Has Snow¬ 
flake been out?” 

Again Binny opened her lips. Again closed 


60 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


them. She had already come to the con¬ 
clusion that this breezy person was a maid 
of sorts, and was reflecting, wearily, that the 
fact added to her complications. Snowflake, 
she presumed, after something of a mental 
effort, was the cat. She shook her head 
dumbly; but the other was already moving 
kitchenwards. 

Binny crept back to the bedroom. She 
made a grimace of distaste at her reflection 
in the glass, then dropped into a chair by the 
dead fire. She was a little frightened, a great 
deal less sure of herself than she had been 
last night. For a passing moment she told 
herself that the situation was beyond her; 
that she could go no further in this mad 
impersonation of her sister. She was sitting 
with her little fists clenched against her 
temples when the woman came back, with a 
tray, upon which were toast and a steaming, 
fragrant cup of coffee. Beyond the open door 
Binny could hear the running of water. 

“Bath’ll be ready in five minutes,” her com¬ 
panion assured her, setting the tray down on 
a little table, and proceeding to rake the 
ashes in the grate — “and I’ll have a fire here 
in no time. You do look a wreck this morn- 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


61 


ing, and no mistake! Sooner you get that 
coffee down, the better you’ll be!” 

Binny nodded gratefully, and picked up 
the cup. She dared not trust herself to speak, 
yet deep down in her was a growing amaze¬ 
ment at the woman’s placid acceptance of 
her. Furtively, over her shoulder, she glanced 
once more at the mirror. She saw a girl with 
dark-circled eyes, pinched lips, and untidy, 
graceful head. She wondered if Lola had 
often looked like that — rose-leaf, vivid Lola! 

She swallowed the coffee — careless of the 
fact that it scalded her throat — thirstily. 
When she set the cup down, a little colour had 
crept into her white cheeks. Some of her 
high courage came creeping back; the sight 
of the suede diary reassured her. She reached 
out a hand to it, then paused. The woman 
had gone out of the room; she came back 
now with a bundle of wood in her arms. 

“The bath’s ready, pretty near!” she said. 
She dropped the wood into the grate, opened 
the wardrobe, and selected a warm wrap. 
“Here you are! By the time you come back, 
the fire’ll be well alight . Run along!” 

Binny ran along, smiling grimly, and yet 
with a faint amusement. She had never, in 


62 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


her hard-working life, known the luxury of 
service before. She decided that it was nice 
to be waited on; but she decided also, 
shrewdly, that her servant was hardly in keep¬ 
ing with a rose bedroom and a white cat. 
Nevertheless, by the time she had luxuriated 
in the perfumed, steaming bath, and had come 
pattering back to a room aglow with fire¬ 
light and made miraculously tidy, she con¬ 
cluded that, while her attendant might have 
faults, she had virtues too. Binny even 
essayed a wavering smile when a few minutes 
later the latter presented herself at the door 
again. 

“Better? That’s good!” The speaker 
nodded with an air of satisfaction, swooped 
on the tray, and stood with it balanced against 
an ample hip. Eyeing her furtively Binny 
decided she was clean, homely, and pleasingly 
bright. Nor, in a plump, rosy way, was she 
bad-looking. 

“You’ll feel ready for a bit of breakfast, 
maybe?” she inquired; and the girl, aware 
of a growing hunger, ventured to voice her 
appreciation of the suggestion. 

Left alone, searching the wardrobe with 
hesitant care, she found a plain blue frock 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


63 


that fitted her gracefully if a little loosely, and 
got into fresh clothes. Refreshed, once more 
pleasing to the eyes, she was rapidly recover¬ 
ing her nerve. The chief difficulty at the 
moment was that she had not the faintest idea 
of what the servant’s name might be; beyond 
that she was going her way still unchallenged. 

She ate the breakfast she found prepared 
for her, sunk deep in thought, but with the 
blood throbbing in her veins, and the surging 
desire for adventure deepening in her soul. It 
was so easy, this fraud that she was practising 
— so absolutely, miraculously easy! And it 
was good to be warm, well-fed, to know, if 
only for a little while, ease, comfort, the joy 
of charming surroundings. She had known 
nothing of any of these things in all her life. 
From babyhood she had found it necessary to 
fight her way along life’s hard highroad. She 
had seldom had really enough to eat ... 

Looking back, her eyes dilated, darkened. 
She shivered, letting her glance stray over the 
comfortable room, the leaping firelight, the 
flowers, and her throat contracted. Then, 
suddenly, she sat rigid. From across the 
hall had come the vibrant, insistent whir of 
a telephone. Above it sounded a ponderous 


64 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


tread; the whirring of the bell ceased, and the 
servant’s voice, mildly impatient, could be 
heard. Binny, sitting quite still, waited, one 
hand nervously crumbling her bread. The 
woman’s footsteps sounded again, ceased as 
once more the telephone bell shrilled its 
clamorous demand for attention. Again the 
half-impatient voice could be heard indis¬ 
tinctly. Then its owner appeared at the 
doorway. 

“The first call was from Mr. De Mille,” 
she said. “I didn’t think you’d want to be 
interrupted in the middle of your breakfast 

— ’specially with a head and all — so I told 
him to ring again later; that you weren’t up.” 
She smoothed her apron down, wrinkling her 
thick, fair brows. “I don’t like Mr. De Mille 

— never did! . . . To start with, he will 
call me ‘Baker’ instead of ‘Sally,’ and I don’t 
like that, either — ’specially the way he 
drawls it! ‘Bak-ar — you know how I mean, 
Miss Lola! I’ve been ‘Sally’ ever since I’ve 
been in service, and it’s good enough for me. 
Your high-falutin’ second names for the likes 
of me riles me — I like to be homely — can’t 
stand swank!” 

Binny drew in her breath. Her eyes bright- 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


65 


ened, and she dropped them quickly to the 
plate in front of her. “Sally” . . . Sally 
Baker. At least she was in possession now of 
the woman’s name, and her way easier in 
consequence. 

“Well?” She forced herself to speak, fin¬ 
ishing on a half-scared cough. Lola’s voice 
on the stage was familiar enough to her, quite 
sweet, rather weak, and with a pronounced, 
not unattractive lisp. Binny’s own was softer, 
usually very clear. Now it was husky with 
strain and weariness, and, until she had met 
Sally’s sharp, surprised glance, she had for¬ 
gotten the need of caution in this respect. 

“Got a cold, too, it seems!” Sally observed, 
half reproachfully. “Colds don’t pay in your 
business, believe me; you’ll want to be a bit 
more careful than you’ve been lately — unless 
you’re thinking of giving up the stage?” Her 
tone was curious, questioning. 

Binny gave a nervous laugh. “Good 
Heavens, no! Not after last night, anyway.” 
She paused, looking up into the other woman’s 
face. She was wondering how much Sally 
might know of her affairs, personal and pro¬ 
fessional, how much she might learn from her, 
tactfully, that would prove of advantage to 


66 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 

herself. She added, slowly: “I'm a bit hoarse 

— I was singing a good deal — after the show 

— last night. Mr. — Mr. Dallas had some 
new songs and I was trying them for him.” 
She nearly laughed at the astonishment in 
Sally's plump face. It was quite evident that 
Lola's maid, like her intimate friends, had 
no illusions as to her vocal abilities. 

“Mr. Dallas?” — Sally checked herself. 
“The second call was from Mr. Van Bevan. 
He wants you to go round to Mr. Dallas's flat 
about eleven-thirty this morning without fail. 
I say, you haven’t got a chance with old Van 
Bevan, really?” 

Binny pushed aside her plate and rose. Her 
cheeks were brilliantly flushed now; she was 
conscious of a warm glow of excitement and 
triumph at the recollection of last night’s suc¬ 
cess. “I've got the chance of my life!” she 
declared. “The chance ...” She broke 
off,'and stood with both hands pressing hard 
upon the table, looking with far-away gaze 
into the fire. She was seeing a new future — 
a future built up upon Lola's name, but with 
her own talent to make it stable. She was 
telling herself that, come what might — 
whether or not her impersonation was dis- 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


67 


covered — she would have had an opportunity 
of showing what she was worth. She straight¬ 
ened herself at last, and smiled — a queer, 
quaint, crooked smile that was absolutely her 
own. 

Sally stared at her, frowned, then, in her 
favourite attitude, with her hands on her 
hips, drew a deep breath. “Well, I declare! 
And look at you! A different person already, 
just thinkin’ of it. I’m glad, miss — I am, 
honest. Not that I ever thought you’d pull 
it off — old Van Bevan’s that particular. But 
I suppose” — she twinkled slyly — “Mr. Far- 
rance had quite a bit to do with it; and of 
course you’re one of the prettiest young ladies 
of the profession I’ve ever been with. A 
real beauty, that’s what I say, and always 
have said. Not but what you’ve been setting 
too much store by your looks — getting a bit 
vain just lately, what with your pictures in 
the papers and all.” She stopped for breath. 
Binny laughed, shakily. Sally began to clear 
the table. “Not but what you’d be wiser, 
to my way of thinking, to get married and 
chuck the stage. Beauty don’t last, and — 
no offence, Miss Lola — you can’t do anything 
much ... k . 


68 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 

“Oh, yes, I can!” Binny, bright-eyed, 
spoke in sudden perfect imitation of Lola’s 
lisping, lazy utterance. “Oh, yes, I can, 
Sally! There — there’s a lot more in me than 
you know!” Her laugh this time was just a 
shade hysterical. A born actress, she was 
fitting herself, subtly, deftly, into the role 
that had become hers. Already, as last night, 
she was playing to a new audience. She was 
trying her wings, and finding them stronger 
with every passing minute. But she was still 
faintly scared, still awed by her own temerity 
and daring. 

Sally, gathering up the cloth, pursed her 
lips and shook her head. “But Van Bevan’s 
show!” she discouraged. “Guess you don’t 
know what you’ve let yourself in for, my dear 

.. . Sorry! Forgot you don’t like being 
called that . . . There’s the bell!” 

She was gone more swiftly than Binny had 
dreamed possible in a person of her anything 
but sylph-like proportions; and with a faint 
flutter of apprehension at her heart the girl 
stood listening. 

A moment later the door was opened again. 
Sally, still with the cloth over her arm, 
announced, in her cheerfully strident voice: 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 69 

“Mr. Farrance, miss,” and, with a look that 
was perilously near a wink, disappeared. 

Binny, her hand against her throat, turned 
swiftly. Her eyes were wide, dark with 
uneasiness and question. Panic was upon her, 
but it passed as Farrance advanced towards 
her. In the bright light of morning he looked 
bigger and browner and more wholesomely 
boyish than ever, and Binny was aware of a 
little stirring of her heartstrings, that odd, 
comforting sensation of warmth and well¬ 
being she had known at his touch last night. 

He caught both her hands in his as he 
reached her side, holding her a little away 
from him. “You’re not utterly done up, then?” 
he demanded, and, as she shook her head 
dumbly, he drew a deep breath of relief. 
“Thank the Lord for that! I was quite wor¬ 
ried about you last night — I’ve been think¬ 
ing about you ever since!” 

Her hands still lay in his. She made a 
movement to release them, but he tightened 
his grip, and now his face was grown serious, 
the careless gaiety gone from his eyes. 

“I don’t know whether you know it, Lola, 
but you’re a wonder — an absolute wonder! 
You knocked us all out at Dallas’s over those 


70 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


songs, I assure you. Van Bevan is raving 
about you — even old Dallas is a bit enthusi¬ 
astic. We none of us dreamed you — you 
could do anything like it!” 

He let go her hands suddenly and put his 
own upon her shoulders. “Are you going to 
be able to keep it up?” he asked. “If so, you’ll 
make a sensation. And then — ” He broke 
off, dropped his hands and turned abruptly to 
the window. Binny looked after him with 
puzzled eyes and a queer sensation of breath¬ 
lessness. He spoke presently, without looking 
round: “And then — maybe you won’t be 
wanting me hanging round quite so much.” 

Binny gave a quick exclamation. She was 
taken aback and startled, bewildered. Far- 
rance wheeled round, hesitated, then came 
quickly to her side. He did not touch her 
now, but in his eyes was a light that made 
her heart leap, then seem to stop beating alto¬ 
gether. 

“I’ve thought a whole lot about you, Lola, 
ever since I’ve known you. No man could 
well help thinking about you. Only — until 
last night — I didn’t quite realize how deep 
my feeling for you has become. Last night 
— somehow — everything was different. You 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


71 


were so changed — so wonderfully changed! 
Or else” — he laughed — “perhaps I was be¬ 
ginning to see more clearly ...” 

The girl made an involuntary, precipitate 
movement away from him, but once more he 
caught her hands, lifting them this time 
against his breast. 

“Lola,” he said — and there was a sudden 
vibrant tenderness in his voice — “I don’t 
want you to go on with this contract of 
Van Bevan’s. I don’t want to share you any 
more! I don’t want you to work — I want 
you to let me look after you. My dear, I’ve 
been pretty blind all this time not to guess 
it before, but — I love you! ” 


VIII 


“I love you!” Farrance repeated the words 
passionately, eagerly, with a sort of boyish 
appeal that, even at that moment, brought 
a passing gleam of sympathy to Binny’s wide, 
frightened eyes — a glow of rose to her 
cheeks. He drew her closer, not giving her 
time to speak. “I suppose I’ve loved you 
all the time,” he went on, “though I did not 
guess it until last night. IVe wanted to be 
with you, of course — I valued your friend¬ 
ship greatly, but I didn’t know I was in love! ” 

Binny gave a smothered exclamation, striv¬ 
ing to free herself, but he held her fast, speak¬ 
ing rapidly, very earnestly: “I think it must 
have been because I somehow didn’t seem to 
know you — the real you — until last night. 
You’ve seemed a different person since last 
night . ... r .” 

This time Binny gasped outright. Abruptly 
she ceased to struggle, staring at him, her 
breath held, her lower lip caught between her 
teeth. What did he mean by that? Did he 
— could he — suspect? 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


73 


She relaxed with a quivering breath of 
relief as he went on: “You’ve been tantalizing 
us all this time — pretending to be quite a 
different sort of person — hiding your person¬ 
ality as well as your talent . . . Oh, Lola! 
Don’t look so amazed. You must have 
guessed, if I did not realize it, that you 
were becoming more than just a friend — 
My dear, I love you . . 

“No, no! Oh, nol” 

Binny freed herself with a violent jerk at 
last. She spoke on a shrill note of protest, 
the colour burning high in her cheeks, then 
dying again. “You don’t! You don’t! You 
can’t l” 

The surprised hurt of his eyes calmed her. 
She caught at her vanishing self-control and 
made a quick, rather wild gesture of her 
hands. 

“Please!” she begged. “You’re just jok¬ 
ing!” There was appeal in her eyes, in 
her voice. She kept her hands outstretched 
as if to hold him away from her. This unex¬ 
pected turn of affairs had come upon her in 
the nature of a blow. Had she thought about 
it, she might have conceived the possibility 
of this man caring for her, in some fashion. 


74 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 

But she had not thought about it. Now it 
was being borne in upon her that yet further 
complications had arisen. The idea of Far- 
rance caring, as she knew instinctively he 
cared, badly scared her, left her breathless. 
Of a sudden she found herself looking upon 
herself as an impostor — a cheat. 

For a moment she wavered; for a moment 
she wondered if she could still go on. The 
light in Farrance’s eyes disturbed her. It was 
a light she had seen before in other men’s 
eyes, and had very firmly discouraged. But 
those men had not been like this man. He 
was different, as everything else in this mad 
masquerade was different. She felt herself 
trembling; knew a desperate desire to still 
the words she guessed were still waiting his 
utterance. Under the astonishment and 
puzzled pain of his steady gaze, she flushed 
anew, unhappily. “Oh, please!” She begged 
again, speaking jerkily and at random, in an 
endeavour to stave off any further declaration, 
and to collect her own scattered senses. “You 
must be joking? You can’t be in earnest! I 
— ” She broke off. 

Farrance made a swift, nervous movement, 
and his eyes darkened. “Joking! Good God! 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


75 


What do you take me for? A stage-door 
hanger-on? An idle flirt, making meaning¬ 
less love as an idle pastime? You ought to 
know me better than that, Lola, by now!” 
There was a little of anger as well as of deep 
reproach in his tone, and Binny made a help¬ 
less gesture. Her big eyes were very troubled, 
her lip was not quite steady. “You ought to 
know I’m not the kind to jest about anything 
like this! That I haven’t just been playing 
round, like half the rest of ’em, to make 
love to you as a sort of game. I am in 
earnest! I’d tell no woman I loved her unless 
I meant it — from the depths of my soul! I 
do love you! Before — at first — perhaps I 
didn’t. Not love you! I liked you, very 
much. I admired you immensely; I was 
interested in you, and I valued our friendship 
— really valued it. I wanted to see you get 
on — I felt protective towards you, wanted 
to help you. I never wanted just to flirt, 
though . . .” 

“Oh — don’t!” Binny spoke faintly, dis- 
tressedly, but he did not seem to hear. 

“I’d have done pretty nearly anything for 
you — as I’d do anything for Irma; anything 
to help. k . . But I didn’t feel the same 


76 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 

as Eve felt since last night. I fell in love 
with you — as a man only falls in love once 
— really for the first time last night, Lola! 
And I guess” — his voice took a sudden, unex¬ 
pected gentleness, a surging warmth that 
made Binny catch her breath sharply — “I 
guess it’s the sort of love that — that stays 
the same, right through!” He cleared his 
throat, uneasily. The steady blue eyes were 
embarrassed, yet intent in their seriousness. 
His face was deeply flushed. 

A silence fell between them, and Binny 
turned quickly away. A queer, eager desire 
to soothe the hurt that she knew she had 
dealt him was upon her. Mingled with it was 
a terror of a situation which she felt was 
beyond her. For a while, her back turned to 
him, she stood by the window, looking out 
unseeingly with eyes that were still wide, a 
little scared, but strangely soft. She was more 
stirred, more deeply touched than she had 
guessed. Her pulses were not quite steady; 
now and then, recollecting his words, her 
heart, perplexingly, missed a beat. 

He believed her to be Lola. He had, how¬ 
ever, confessed that he had actually not fallen 
in love with her until last night. Last night! 



CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


77 


. . Her lips parted, the colour came 
rushing back, glorious, to her cheeks. Then 
he had not really been in love with Lola — 
he had fallen in love with herself! She lifted 
her hands and pressed the cool palms against 
her hot cheeks. She did not know what to 
think, what to do — She caught her breath 
as she heard him follow her across the room; 
held it as his hands touched her shoulders. 

“Lola!” There was a caress in his voice, 
an appeal, that thrilled her, in spite of herself. 
“Dear, I’m — I’m a clumsy brute! I don’t 
know how to express myself — how to make 
you quite understand the way I feel! All I 
know is that I love you . . . love you . ., 

love youl” 

His arms went swiftly about her; his face 
was buried in her hair, and for a minute Binny 
remained quite still, her heart beating wildly. 
Then she struggled free and faced him. 

“Don’t!” she cried, almost pantingly. 
“Don’t!” She was rather white, her eyes 
very brilliant. 

Farrance looked at her, and let his arms 
fall to his sides. Into his face there came 
bewilderment, question, disappointment. “I’m 
sorry!” he said, and in his voice there was 


78 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 

something that made her wince. “I thought 
you’d understand — care enough to — to —” 

“I do!” Binny spoke eagerly; then her 
face flamed. “I mean — I don’t! Don’t — 
don’t understand, that is. You—I’d never 
thought of you —of you —caring! We’ve 
just seemed friends — the best possible 
friends! . . She trailed rather helplessly 
to a stop. She had shot a bow at a venture, 
and watched him, anxiously. 

He nodded. “So it seemed to me — until 
last night!” he agreed quietly. “Now . . . 
Oh, Lola!” His hands went out to her again, 
pleadingly. 

She evaded them, breathing rather quickly; 
her palms going once more to her cheeks. 

Farrance looked at her wistfully: “You’re 
not going to turn me down, are you, Lola? I 
suppose I’ve blundered, like a fool — startled 
you and upset you. But you won’t let it make 
any difference between us? Things can be 
just as they’ve always been until — until you 
can make up your mind how you feel about 
me?” 

He came a step nearer, and now, in spite 
of her resistance, he took possession, master¬ 
fully, of the slim fingers once more. “Let me 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


79 


try and make you care, Lola!” he urged, and 
something in his voice brought a little lump 
to Binny’s throat, an unexpected flash of 
tears to her eyes. 

She looked down at her hands, stirring in 
his, then up again into his eyes. “I’d like — 
things — to be just the same as before,” she 
told him, after a long moment of hesitation, 
and with a growing consciousness that the secu¬ 
rity of this man’s friendship was already some¬ 
thing that she desired — needed, perhaps 
more especially now. “Only — I don’t want 
you to make love to me. I — I haven’t 
thought of you like that. I’d rather — just be 
friends — for a little while, anyway.” 

The ardent gaze bent upon hers warmed 
eagerly, and she coloured, then smiled in spite 
of her perturbation. 

The next moment she was grave again. “I 
want to go through with this contract with 
Mr. Van Bevan. I want to prove, if possible, 
that there really is something in me — some¬ 
thing worth while. I want to think — just 
of making good until I know how much I can 
do. You do understand?” 

Farrance was looking at her with the 
shadow of a faint wonderment in his eyes. 


80 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


“How much you can do! My dear, you gave 
me the surprise of my life last night. If you 
can keep that sort of thing up, there’s not 
much doubt of what you’ll do! You’ll go 
racing clean ahead, and right to the top of 
the tree! There’s not the smallest doubt 
about that! Van Bevan says so. Better, Ivo 
Dallas says so. What knocks us all is why 
you’ve lain low about your accomplishments 
for so long. It’s going to be rather hard on 
Scarlossi, isn’t it?” 

Binny shook her head. She was in no con¬ 
dition of mind for argument, and, at the 
moment, quite incapable of dishing up what¬ 
ever explanation had come glibly to her 
tongue upon the previous evening. She felt 
thoroughly bewildered; almost dazed. 

To her relief, Farrance continued: “Not 
that that is the question in point. Lola — 
haven’t you anything more to say to me? 
Just a little hope to give me?” 

Once more Binny shook her head. Then: 
“Only the same as I said just now. I want to 
see how well I can work. I don’t want to 
— to think about flirting—-and love . . .” 
She paused. The eyes she lifted to his were 
wistful. “All the same,” she said upon an 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


81 


impulse — “I do want us to stay friends — 
real friends — if you will?” 

Far ranee turned her hand over in his and 
looked down at the little pink palm. He 
sighed. “All right! ” he said boyishly. “Only 
— only if later on you come to the conclusion 
that you don’t want me hanging round — 
or if you’re getting tired — I want you to let 
me know. You’re going right up among the 
stars, you know, Lola. And I — ” 

“And you’re the best friend I’ve got!” 
Binny declared with a conviction born of pure 
intuition. “I — I’m quite sure that I’ll always 
want you — just as you are! And then I’ll 
never get tired!” 

Farrance’s eyes drank deeply of hers. She 
kept her own steady with an effort that sur¬ 
prised her. Then he bent his head and kissed, 
very gently, the over-thin, white wrist. 
“Thank you!” he said, and released her. 

She hesitated, smiled at him tremulously, 
then made a nervous gesture. “And now,” 
she said, with an assumption of lightness and 
ease which she was very far from feeling, “I’m 
going to send you away. I’ve got a fearful 
head!” 

She was brought up short, and instantly 


82 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


on her guard at the blank expression of Far- 
rance’s face. 

“Send me away?” he echoed. “But — 
what about Irma? She’s waiting outside 
now!” 


IX 


Binny blinked. “Irma!” she echoed stu¬ 
pidly, and glanced involuntarily over her 
shoulder, as though in the hope of seeing into 
the street beyond. 

Farrance, looking at her, passed his hand 
over his smooth hair. “Oh, I say!” he pro¬ 
tested ruefully. “You’re not going to tell me 
you’ve forgotten we’re lunching with her and 
Terry O’Farrer? She came along with me 
to fetch you, and offer congratulations. She’s 
awfully interested in you, you know, Lola.” 

Binny passed a hand that was not quite 
steady across her eyes. She felt at that 
moment that she was rapidly nearing the 
verge of hysteria. Irma! Who was Irma? 
Vaguely she recollected that Farrance had 
already mentioned the name; she cudgelled 
her brains to remember exactly what he had 
said. “. . t . I’d have done pretty nearly any¬ 
thing for you, as I’d do anything for Irma! 

. . The sentence came floating back to 
her, and, letting her hand fall, she turned 
quickly away. 


84 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 

“I’m most awfully sorry!” she declared, 
rather faintly. “But — I'm afraid I had for¬ 
gotten! Such a lot has happened since 
yesterday — I'm beginning to feel utterly 
dazed.” She spoke with an unconscious weari¬ 
ness that was not lost upon him. 

He slid a strong hand beneath her elbow. 
“Poor kid! I guess you are! Anyway, never 
mind. Just run along and get your outdoor 
things on. Irma's a jolly good sport, but 
she's inclined to be impatient, and we've kept 
her the deuce of a time as it is.” 

Under his touch Binny stirred ever so 
slightly. She felt more bewildered and help¬ 
less than ever, completely at a loss how to 
act. Then the sound of Sally's voice, hum¬ 
ming across the little hall, brought remem¬ 
brance of Van Bevan's telephone message, and 
she flung a quick glance at the clock. 

“But — but I'm afraid I can’t!” She drew 
away, looking at him apologetically. “You 
see, Mr. Van Bevan wants me. He — he sent 
a message to say he’d expect me at 
Mr. Dallas's flat at eleven-thirty, sharp. And 
it's nearly that now.” 

Inwardly she was thanking the fates for 
what she hoped might be a respite. Far- 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


85 


ranee made a protesting gesture. His expres¬ 
sion was so acutely disappointed that the girl 
giggled half hysterically. 

“Oh, but I say, Lola! Irma’s put off half 
a dozen engagements for this lunch, and she’s 
hoping to get Harkness to join us. It was 
awfully decent of her to think of it — espe¬ 
cially as she doesn’t care a very great deal 
about him. Only he has a pretty good deal of 
influence with Van Bevan, I fancy — not that 
that matters quite so much now you’ve made 
good on your own. But — but — oh, dash 
it all! You’ve just got to come! You can’t 
get out of it. Really you can’t!” 

Binny sat down abruptly in the nearest 
chair. Her brain was beginning to whirl 
again; once more a feeling of panic was rising 
within her. “But — Mr. Van Bevan? ...” 

Farrance frowned at the clock. Already it 
was nearing the half-hour, and he turned 
quickly to the door. “I’ll go and tell Irma to 
send the car back for us to Dallas’s flat, then 
I’ll come back and take you across there. We 
can join Irma and Terry as soon as Van 
Bevan’s through with you. . ,. ... Irma will 
understand. Only you want to get a move 
on.” 


86 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


He was gone before Binny could answer. 
She heard him greeting Sally cheerily, then 
the slam of the door behind him. Rather 
slowly she got up, passing out of the room, 
and across to the white-and-rose bower 
beyond. 

Sally was at the wardrobe, selecting a wrap. 
She threw it over the back of a chair as the 
girl entered, and demanded over her shoulder: 
“That do? . . . And what hat are you 
going to wear? I’d say that new tricorne — 
’specially as you haven’t time to change your 
frock.” 

Binny nodded dumbly. Without speaking 
she suffered herself to be assisted into the 
hat in question; she agreed mutely with 
Sally’s selection of hatpins and gloves. For 
a passing instant, viewing her reflection, a 
little colour mounted to her cheeks and her 
eyes brightened, but the sound of the bell 
ringing made her catch her breath. 

Sally eyed her shrewdly, reached for an 
ivory box and opened it, displaying the rouge 
within. “Just a touch,” she suggested. “Not 
that you need it as a rule; only you’re a bit 
washed out this morning — and no wonder. 
That’ll be Mr. Farrance back. I’ll let him in.” 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


87 


Binny stood looking down at the rouge; 
then thoughtfully she studied her own face 
in the glass. She was decidedly pale, and 
once her hand went out to the ivory jar. Then 
she changed her mind, oddly certain that, 
“washed out” or not, Farrance would prefer 
her untouched by cosmetics. The thought 
startled her; she swung away from the glass 
and out into the hall. 

Farrance, chatting easily to Sally, had a 
great bunch of violets in his hands. “Had 
them in the car for you,” he explained as he 
gave them to her. “Brought ’em along. I 
hope you’ll like them.” 

Binny took them with a little cry of delight 
that brought both the man’s and the servant’s 
eyes to her in a passing surprise. “They’re 
lovely!” She looked up, her small face irradi¬ 
ated by a smile that Farrance had never seen 
there before, and which made him gasp. He 
seemed about to speak, changed his mind, 
and a moment later was piloting Binny out of 
the building in the direction of Dallas’s flat. 

The latter, impatient, irritable, sceptical in 
the new light of day, the lock of hair on 
his forehead lanker than ever, and his eyes 
more protruding, greeted her gruffly. Van 


88 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


Bevan, behind him, assured her she was late, 
and that his time was money. At sight of 
Farrance, he shrugged, and grinned his sud¬ 
den, amiable grin. 

“Since you're goin’ to be a star, m’dear — 
a real star — I suppose I’ll have to give in 
to your whims. But I’m not Scarlossi, and 
don’t forget it. We want to try a song or 
two right here, and if you come across as you 
did last night — why, then, anyway rehearsals 
Monday morning, ten o’clock — and a pretty 
hefty talkin’ to, not to speak of the fine, if 
you don’t turn up — star or no star!” 

Binny smiled at him tranquilly. Persons 
of Van Bevan’s type — in a lesser degree — 
were very familiar to her. Off the stage she 
was not afraid of them; within this room she 
was already wrapping herself about with the 
mantle of last night’s triumph. At her side 
she was conscious of Farrance, big, adoring, 
influential. 

“I’m ready!” she assured Dallas, with a 
nod, and let her wrap slip from her shoulders. 

Thereafter, amazingly, she lost herself in 
the art that was hers. She emerged from 
something like a dream to find Van Bevan 
beaming upon her. But she only heard 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


89 


Farrance’s quiet whisper, very close to her 
ear, as he put her cloak about her shoulders 
again: “Lola! Lola! . . . You’re a wonder!” 

And her heart was still singing as she 
passed into the lounge of the fashionable 
hotel where he had told her they would find 
“Irma” waiting, her lips were smiling, her eyes 
brilliant as diamonds, yet dreamy, far 
away . . . 

She came to earth at the sound of a woman’s 
voice, liltingly sweet, beautifully modulated: 
“Dudley! At last! I thought you were never 
coming!” 

Binny’s eyes flashed wide. She became 
aware of a little woman, so small as to be 
doll-like, yet exquisitely proportioned. A 
woman of bronze hair, bronze eyes, and 
wonderful, warm, rich skin that toned 
exquisitely with both. At her side a red- 
haired young giant, with eyes like an Irish 
sea, smiled in cheery welcome. Just behind 
her another man stood, a man of perhaps 
forty-five, well-groomed, yet subtly different 
from both Dudley Farrance and the red- 
haired boy. A man suggesting power, and 
possessed, the instant he smiled, of a very 
definite charm. A man who was, to Binny, 


90 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


elusively, bewilderingly familiar, while she 
had no recollection of ever having met him 
before. 

An instant later she knew why. His eyes, 
arresting, intent, were upon her. She met 
them, scarcely knowing that she did so, and 
drew her breath with a swift sense of shock. 
It was as if she had looked, closely, into a 
mirror reflecting Lola Arnaut’s eyes — or her 
own. 


X 


The effect of that first glance was so uncanny 
that Binny nearly exclaimed. It was with an 
effort that she recovered from it, gave her 
attention hastily to that which was going on 
about her. She found that the woman with 
the beautiful bronze hair was holding out a 
diminutive hand towards her. 

“Fm so glad to see you, Miss Arnaut,” 
she was saying cordially — “and most awfully 
interested in the little my brother has told 
me about your new contract with Mr. Van 
Bevan. I wish you all success!” 

The words were accompanied by a smile 
that brought an answering glow to Binny’s 
eyes. She was strangely, and instantly, at 
home with this woman. Her unease dropped 
from her; moreover, she had gleaned in a 
flash the relationship between Farrance and 
the dainty, intriguing person whose tiny 
fingers still touched hers. 

“Thank you!” She spoke rather low, with 
a note of diffidence that made Irma Farrance 
look at her quickly, slightly frowning. She 
had met Lola Arnaut for the first time not 


92 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


many hours previously, and had found her 
anything but shy. There was something 
about this girl which made it suddenly pos¬ 
sible to understand her brother’s admiration. 
Irma herself had always admired Lola 
Arnaut’s physical perfections. She had not 
been so sure, meeting her, that she would go 
further in her interest. The real Lola Arnaut 
had been beautiful. Binny was beautiful, and 
something more. A spark of sympathy 
seemed to radiate between them. 

Irma, suddenly recollecting the others, 
released Binny’s hand and glanced negligently 
over her shoulder at the man just behind her. 
Binny was vaguely conscious of the faintest 
hardening of that wonderful, sweetly low 
voice of hers when she spoke; of the least 
alteration in her expression, though her lips 
remained smiling. 

She said: “But I forgot. I don’t think you 
know Mr. Harkness yet!” 

The man came forward, smiling, and Binny 
caught her breath, more than ever conscious 
of the feeling that she was looking into her 
own eyes. 

Irma spoke, smoothly, softly: “Mr. Kyrle 
Harkness—Miss Arnaut,” and turned quickly 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


93 


to the red-haired young man as Harkness 
bowed over Binny’s hand. 

“I have been wanting to meet you for a 
long time, Miss Arnaut,” he murmured; and 
Binny, wondering if the words were insincere, 
decided that the voice was not unpleasant. 
She did not answer, but let her brows flash 
up. Harkness laughed, a deep, rather throaty 
laugh. Binny felt that he had read her 
thought; he answered it, whether consciously 
or unconsciously she could not tell. 

“I could have managed to before, I suppose 
— but not under such pleasant circum¬ 
stances.” He turned slightly to Irma Far- 
rance, who was talking animatedly to the 
red-haired young man and did not look round. 
“Besides which,” he added urbanely to Binny, 
“I am a business man — and a busy business 
man at that! ... ,.” He paused, hesitated, 
and coughed. 

Irma made a slight gesture, still without 
turning: “Oh, come along, all of you!” She 
tucked her hand into the red-haired young 
man’s arm, and moved forward. “I’m liter¬ 
ally starving! . . ,. Dud, as a mere 

brother, you’ve got to be odd man out!” 

Farrance flung a glance at Binny of mock 


94 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


despair that made her blush rosily, and bite 
her lip because of it; and, with another of 
reproach at the back of his sister's exquisite 
head, he fell in behind the little procession. 

The luncheon was a gay and absolutely 
informal one, and Binny, after the first few 
moments of awkwardness, thoroughly enjoyed 
it. Ever adaptable to circumstances, quick 
to learn as well as to observe, she had soon 
more or less forgotten herself, and was com¬ 
pletely at ease. She missed, while she talked, 
no detail of the service, or of her companions' 
table manners. Her few blunders she covered 
so deftly that they went unobserved. The 
food itself fascinated her. Whimsically re¬ 
minding herself that fried fish and chips had 
until now been the greatest gastronomic 
luxury she had known, she applied herself 
to the fare before her with the earnest appre¬ 
ciation of a small child. 

She looked up once to find Kyrle Harkness's 
eyes upon her, and flushed. Upon her other 
side she knew that Farrance was watching 
her with something of amusement, and per- 
plexity. 

Harkness said: “Irma — Miss Farrance — 
has just been telling me that you’re going to 



CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


95 


be in Van Bevan’s show — that, in fact, 
you’ve made something of a hit. I wish you 
the best of luck!” 

Once more Binny drew a deep, relieved 
breath. Farrance’s sister, then, was unmar¬ 
ried— was Irma Farrance. So far, so good! 
She answered Harkness’s small talk appropri¬ 
ately, the while she observed her hostess with 
a closer interest. 

Irma was engaged in making herself pro¬ 
vocatively charming to the young giant at 
her side. Binny, remembering that Farrance 
had said they were lunching with Irma and 
one Terry O’Farrer, came to the conclusion 
that the red-haired one was the O’Farrer in 
question, and also, since he had greeted her 
merely with a grin and a handshake, that she 
was supposed to know him. It was obvious 
to all that he was deeply enamoured of the 
little lady at his side. He hung upon her 
every word, her most fleeting smile. He 
claimed her attention whenever possible. He 
glared, upon occasions, at Kyrle Harkness. 
And it dawned upon Binny presently that 
Kyrle Harkness glared back! 

But he made himself very charming to 
Binny herself; he talked of the theatre, of 


96 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 

her past successes, her possible future tri¬ 
umph. Speaking warily, drawing alike upon 
her imagination and her experience, she 
answered him. She began to enjoy herself, 
with that fearful enjoyment that some people 
experience in walking too close to the edge of 
a cliff! 

Nor was she without a certain sense of 
satisfaction at realizing that Farrance — odd 
man out, indeed — was glowering at her jeal¬ 
ously. The knowledge brought the colour 
deliciously to her cheeks, gave her a thrill 
such as she had never experienced before. 
She smiled at him once, shyly, delightfully, 
and with a smothered exclamation he leaned 
towards her. Rose-red, still athrill, she 
turned hastily to Harkness again. 

Thereafter she allowed him to monopolize 
her attention, but later, finding herself 
momentarily alone with Terry O’Farrer, and 
separated from the others, she asked swiftly: 
“Who is Mr. Harkness?” 

“Who . . . ?” O’Farrer echoed the word 
blankly. “Good grief! You ought to know, 
seeing what he’s putting up for Van Bevan’s 
show!” He was regarding her with such 
amazement that Binny went cold. 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


97 


“I mean,” she explained hastily — “what is 
he — er — exactly?” Hoping fervently that 
she had not once more tripped, she waited in 
trepidation. 

Terry O’Farrer shrugged. “There you have 
me! Lord knows — I don’t. An’ the divil 
of any other fellow, by the same token. 
‘Something in the City’ — just ‘Something in 
the City’ Harkness is — and aiming to climb 
the social ladder because of the money he’s 
rolling in!” His tone was bitter. The gay 
inconsequence had left his bearing. He eyed 
Irma, talking to Harkness, sombrely, his big 
shoulders hunched, his hands thrust deep into 
his pockets. 

Binny, feeling that she was treading upon 
delicate ground, adroitly changed the subject, 
digesting rapidly the facts that Kyrle 
Harkness was by way of aspiring to a sphere 
to which he had not been born, was a person 
of wealth, if not of position, and was “putting 
up” for Van Bevan’s show. Hence the reason 
that Irma Farrance had gone out of her way, 
obviously at her brother’s instigation, to 
include him in her luncheon party. 

Another thing also was plain. Terry 
O’Farrer was seriously in love with Farrance’s 


98 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


brown witch of a sister. Binny did not 
wonder. The more she saw of Irma Farrance, 
the more fascinating she found her. Through¬ 
out her drab existence she had met no woman 
at all like Irma. She loved to watch her, the 
lissom grace of the tiny body, the expressive 
white hands, the eyebrows, the warm red lips 
— the birdlike turn of the shining head. It 
was by no means surprising that Terry loved 
her. Binny looked from him, six foot three, 
if an inch, to the elfin creature standing well 
below her own shoulder, and smiled with the 
indulgence of one in whose heart there is 
always a soft spot for lovers. 

She looked at Farrance, almost as big, if 
not so boyishly awkward, as Terry himself. 
And then she sighed, without quite knowing 
why, except that this was such a different 
world into which she had stepped, overnight, 
like a daring yet half-tragic Cinderella. 

Something stirred in her that she had never 
known before; something at once wistful, 
yearning. Her soul as well as her thin body 
had hitherto been starved. Now t . She 
drew a long breath, and glanced up to find 
that Harkness had come back. Terry 
O’Farrer, murmuring a quick excuse, joined 
Farrance and his sister. 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 99 

Binny looked at Harkness with a new curi¬ 
osity. She had met with his type before, 
but not in such pleasant guise. He was not 
of Irma’s world, not of her kind. But he 
was perfectly at ease in his surroundings; 
he had acquired a veneer which allowed him 
to pass, to the casual eye, as the Farrances’ 
equal. Binny sensed the difference in him, 
even while she decided that he was very 
likeable. 

He smiled upon her now genially. “Van 
Bevan was talking of making a contract with 
you, Miss Arnaut, for the new show, but I 
didn’t .mow until today that anything definite 
was settled. What sort of part?” Uncon¬ 
sciously, perhaps, his tone implied a doubt 
of her ability to fill any role particularly 
successfully. 

Nettled, Binny flushed, then laughed. An 
imp of mischief shone in her eyes. “I’m not 
quite sure,” she returned demurely. “But 
from what Mr. Van Bevan and Mr. Dallas 
said this morning, I fancy I’m to take Lottie 
CarralPs place. She’s ill, you know . f . 

“What?” Harkness’s expression was gen¬ 
uinely startled. “But — Good Lord! . . . ” 
He stopped, coughed, and made a helpless 


100 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


gesture. For a minute or two he stared at 
her. a Good Lord!” he said again. “I must 
go along and see Van Bevan. I — er — as 
perhaps you know, IVe a fairly big interest 
in this particular show — ” 

Binny nodded, non-committally, her lip 
between her teeth. She was half amused and 
half troubled at Harkness’s obvious consterna¬ 
tion. 

Unexpectedly, from across the room Irma’s 
voice broke in upon their conversation. “Miss 
Arnaut seems to have quite a surprise for 
every one, Mr. Harkness,” she said. “From 
all accounts Mr. Van Bevan is highly enthusi¬ 
astic.” She smiled at Binny, and the girl 
flushed gratefully. 

Harkness cleared his throat. He was study¬ 
ing her rather thoughtfully; then he shrugged. 
“Old Van Bevan generally knows what he’s 
playing at!” he conceded, if a shade grudg¬ 
ingly. He added, unexpectedly: “Oh, by the 
way, Miss Arnaut, while I was in Paris I met 
your father. Indeed, he and I were on the 
same boat coming back here —” 

He stopped short. Binny was staring at 
him dumbly, her eyes wide, so utterly dis- 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 101 


mayed that the man made a quick movement 
of apology. 

“I am so sorry! I did not think — I had 
quite forgotten the newspaper chatter as to 
— er—your father being opposed to your 
stage career. I hope I haven’t blundered very 
badly?” There was genuine contrition in his 
voice. 

But Binny did not heed and did not answer. 
A small, scared voice was whispering within 
her: “My father — Lola’s father — here — 
in England!” 


XI 


Two days later, towards dusk, Irma Farrance 
drove up to the door of her home in Kyrle 
Harkness’s car. At the top of the short flight 
of steps she paused and gave him her hand. 

“I’m not going to ask you to come in this 
evening,” she told him; and added hastily as 
she saw his look of keen disappointment: “I’m 
very tired, and my head’s begun to ache rather 
badly. I’ll have to go to a rather big affair 
with mother to-night, and I’d like to rest. 
You do understand?” 

“Of course!” Harkness’s voice was oddly 
gentle, and at the look in his eyes a faint 
colour swept into Irma’s face and died again, 
leaving her unwontedly pale. She drew her 
hand away and turned with relief as the door 
opened, passing rather hastily across the 
threshold. 

As in a moment the door closed again, 
shutting Harkness out, she drew a long breath, 
and moved listlessly towards the stairs. 

The maid followed her. “Mr. O’Farrer is 
in the morning room, miss.” 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 103 


Irma checked an exclamation, and stopped 
short. She stood hesitant, with bitten lip, as 
if about to make some excuse. Then she 
changed her mind, and with a word of thanks 
crossed the hall again to the morning room. 

O’Farrer was lounging by the window, one 
big shoulder against the frame, his hands 
thrust deep into his pockets. At Irma’s 
entrance he straightened and came forward, 
his whole, good-looking, freckled face lighting 
up eagerly. His expression changed as his 
glance rested upon her. 

Binny would scarcely have recognized Irma 
at this moment. All the brilliance, and 
sparkle, and care-free gaiety were gone. She 
looked jaded, utterly weary. The red mouth 
drooped; there were dark circles beneath her 
eyes. 

“Irma!” Terry’s voice held startled ques¬ 
tioning. His big hands went out to her, and 
for an instant her lips quivered. She gave 
him her own, then drew them hurriedly away 
again. 

“What’s up? You look fagged out?” He 
spoke with concern, and the girl tried to smile 
in reassurance. She failed dismally, and made 
a sharp gesture. 


104 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


“Oh — everything! And I am! Fagged, 
and bothered, and — and fed up!” 

For a moment he stood looking at her. In 
the half light of the room she seemed ridicu¬ 
lously small, and fragile, like some Dresden 
china thing. O’Farrer’s throat contracted; 
the blue of his eyes seemed to deepen and to 
glow. He went to her, laying strong hands 
upon her slender shoulders, towering above 
her. At his touch she grew rigid, then relaxed 
and swayed a little towards him. 

“Oh, Terry! . . . How I wish I were a 
cottager’s kid, selling eggs and vegetables and 
flowers — and with nothing to worry about 
but having a roof — and enough bread and 
butter to satisfy me! . . . Or a clerk — or 
a chorus girl — anything usejul — and unim¬ 
portant ...” Her voice caught hysteri¬ 
cally. Terry’s grip of her shoulders tightened. 
“But I’m not! I’m a Farrance! . . . It’s 
reputed that there’s a sprinkle of royal blood 
still in our veins — though we’ve scarcely a 
penny to bless ourselves with, and no credit! 

. . . For the rest, I’m marketable! I’ve 
blood, and breeding, and — beauty! ” 

She writhed out of Terry’s hands and went 
to the mirror over the mantelpiece, eyeing 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 10S 


herself grimly. “These things,” she proceeded, 
“I am expected to exchange for — money! 
Oh, Terry — I assure you, these days, it’s no 
world for folks who are poor! ” Her tone was 
cynical, bitter. 

Terry’s mouth twisted grimly. “Sure, 
you’ve said it! It’s tricksy enough for those 
who have, but for those who haven’t ...” 
He stopped. In the mirror she saw his young 
face grow bleak; harassed, hard. Her own 
puckered; she hid it hastily in the curve of 
her arm. 

“I’m so tired!” she whispered huskily. “So 
tired!” 

And, in a minute, once more his arms were 
round her, crushing her so close that she 
gasped for breath. “Oh! Heart of the heart 
of me! But it’s the world itself I’d be giving, 
not to speak of the breath of me and every 
drop of blood in my body to pick you right 
up in my two arms and carry you off, this 
blessed minute! . . . Irma! Irma!” He 
lifted her bodily, holding her as he might 
have held a child. His mouth found hers, and 
with a little sob she lay still, her eyes closed. 
Terry’s lips went from her mouth to her lids. 

He whispered, shakily, his heart athrob 


106 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


against hers: “Oh — Irma! You’re such a 
kid! Such a little, little thing . ... And I 
love you!” 

The warmth that had crept into Irma’s face 
died out of it. “Put me down! ” she said, and 
there was that in the trailing weariness of her 
voice that made him obey, unquestioning. 
She did not look at him as he set her on 
her feet. She said, rather tonelessly: “You 
mustn’t . . ... I told you, before! Father’s 
a martinet — mother’s a mule!” Her lips set 
almost viciously. “And you’re hopelessly ineli¬ 
gible — a gambler — penniless! /” — her 

eyes, strangely tragic, opened wide into his 

— “I, as I have already said, am marketable 

— possessed of blood, and birth, and beauty! 
And I’m not twenty-one for two years yet!” 

“Twenty-one! Good Gad!” Terry ex¬ 
ploded with unexpected violence, his blue 
eyes aflame, his red hair rumpled. “They 
can’t pull that stuff over you in these days! 
Or, anyway, if they try to, there’s one way 
out — if you care enough! I — I’ll rake 
up some money, somewhere, somehow, and 
we’ll — get out! Just you and I, kiddy — and 
build some kind of a little old world of our 
own!” 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 107 


Irma looked at him, and looked away again. 
She shook her head. “We couldn’t. If we 
did, it would kill father! Not” — her mouth 
twisted in a grim smile — “because he loves 
me so much, but because any shock — any 
sort of opposition — is likely to cause a 
stroke, and might prove fatal.” 

She evaded his hand, and walked to the 
window. It was so dark now that he could 
scarcely see her face, and she kept it averted, 
staring at the blur beyond the pane of glass. 
After an appreciable silence she said, very 
deliberately, with a sort of level quiet: “Terry 
— Kyrle Harkness asked me to marry him, 
to-day!” 


XII 


“Harkness — asked you to marry him!” 

At the indignant incredulity of his tone, 
Irma choked on a rather shrill, hysterical 
laugh. She checked it, nodding dumbly. For 
a moment Terry stared at her in silent stupe¬ 
faction, then a wave of wrath rose within him, 
and broke with a violence that wrenched a cry 
of protest from the girl. 

“The beastly bounder! The insufferable, 
conceited, money-bloated outsider! The—” 
“Terry!” There was appeal in the word, 
something more — something that stayed the 
rush of the boy’s wrath, and left him still, 
staring at her with eyes that had lost their 
fire and taken in its place a sharp, anxious 
questioning. 

“You mustn’t, Terry!” Irma spoke again, 
not quite distinctly, her face once more 
averted. “After all, Mr. Harkness has as 
much right as — as any other man — to . . . ” 
“Right?” Terry’s hands flashed out unex¬ 
pectedly, and gripped her shoulders. She 
tried to free herself, but he held her fast. 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 109 


“Right? The right of a bank account as 
swelled as his own head! The right of a 
man who has only to put his hand in his pocket 
and buy what he wants! By the holy Saint 
Patrick! But I’d like to be telling him what 
I think about his Tight/ this very minute. I 
would so!” 

Irma laughed again, shakily this time. 
“Oh, Terry! You fiery, inconsequent, illogical 
person! Mr. Harkness’s wealth, his ability 
to purchase wherever his fancy may lie, does 
not, surely, debar him from asking a woman 
to marry him?” 

“But you! I can’t think how he had the 
nerve, the colossal cheek! . . You! 

You’re miles above him; you’re above any 
man if it comes to that. But for Kyrle 
Harkness to aspire to you! He’s not even a 
gentleman!” 

“Terry!” Irma’s voice was softly rebuking. 
Under the grip of his hands she stirred; then 
she went on before he could speak again: “It’s 
not fair to say that, Terry. Mr. Harkness, 
since I have known him, has never behaved 
as other than a gentleman. If he is not really 
of our world, he has never, on any occasion, 
made the fact undesirably evident. There is 


110 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


nothing in the slightest degree objectionable 
about him. No man could have been more 
kind, or nice, or — or delicate.” 

Terry’s fingers tightened until she winced 
beneath them. “Good Heavens! To hear 
you talk one would be thinking that you’re 
condoning the fellow! That — Irma!” He 
bent quickly closer, striving to see into her 
face. Over his own there passed the shadow 
of a new doubt, a devastating fear. “Irma! 
You don’t mean that you’re thinking seriously 
of his proposal?” 

Irma made a hasty gesture of denial. “No, 
no! Only, I can’t, in fairness, listen to you 
saying things that are really unjust. I do not 
doubt for one moment that Mr. Harkness’s 
social aspirations have a great deal to do with 
his desire to make me his wife. But he cares, 
too. It’s that which worries me.” 

“Why?” Terry’s voice was unwontedly 
harsh. His eyes, narrowed, still strove to 
search hers, unavailingly. 

Irma lifted her hands helplessly, and let 
them fall. “Were it only a question of 
acquiring a higher standing in society, he 
might not persist unduly. But since he cares 
too . Terry, Kyrle Harkness is a man 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 111 


who is in the habit of getting what he wants, 
somehow. My refusal to marry him may 
have hurt his pride, his self-esteem — but it 
will not deter him. He as good as told me 
that he had no intention of regarding ‘no’ 
as an answer.” 

“Like his infernal impudence!” 

Irma shook her head. “No. It was not 
impudence. It was not even said in a manner 
that I could resent. I think — somehow — 
I’d rather it had been. It would have made 
the situation more definite.” 

“Good Lord! Isn’t it definite enough now? 
See here, sweetness, if that chap pesters you 
at all, just let me know, and I’ll put the fear 
of the Lord into him, some way or other. I 
won’t have it, Irma! Isn’t it bad enough 
to be in the divil of a position that I’m in 
now — loving you with every breath of my 
body and every beat of my heart — and with¬ 
out the face to stand up before the world 
and say so, and claim you, and run off with you, 
because I’m pretty well as poor as any beggar 
whining at a street corner, with never a pros¬ 
pect of being anything else!” He let his 
hands fall, and straightened himself s-tiffly. 
There was an unboyish grimness in the set 


112 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


lines of his face, a great yearning beneath the 
restless dissatisfaction of his eyes. 

“It’s devilish!” he broke out again, speak¬ 
ing low, but with a fierce force behind the 
words. “Here am I loving you, and you 
loving me, and this sort of thing can happen 
— another man chipping in and fashing you 
with his attentions — and me having to stand 
by with my mouth shut, and put up with it, 
just because I’ve chucked away all the money 
I ever did have, and never qualified to make 
myself fit to earn any more. Why do folks 
bring their kids up as I was brought up, 
anyway? Just because you’re rich, it doesn’t 
follow you’re going to stay that way — not if 
you’ve the inclinations my family had, and 
passed along to me!” He paused for breath. 

Again Irma smiled in spite of herself. 
There was the warmth of a great tenderness 
in her eyes, a wistful understanding and 
regret. “Poor Terry! Oh, my dear, what 
a curse money is, both the possession and the 
lack of it! —There!” She changed her tone 
quickly, shook herself with a great effort out 
of her mood of depression and uncertainty, 
and smiled at him. “Let’s stop worrying, and 
think of happier things! I was a goose, and 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 113 


abominably selfish, to start grousing, but 
sometimes — sometimes one just has to. And 
I’ve had a trying day, one way or another.” 

“Poor kiddy!” Terry’s voice softened to 
a note that brought tears to Irma’s eyes. 

As he stretched his arms to her, she stood 
away from him, laying just the tips of her 
fingers upon his extended palms. “Don’t 
make love any more to me, Terry — not 
to-night, dear!” she pleaded. “It makes 
things so much harder — for us both.” 

Terry opened his lips, and closed them 
again. For a while he stood, looking down 
at the white fingers curled about his. Then, 
unexpectedly, only just above his breath, but 
with a fierce passion that startled her, he 
began to speak again: “God! Irma! What 
wouldn’t I give to be able to start fair again! 
To drag myself out of the mire of debt into 
which I have deliberately, and with my eyes 
open, cast myself! To face life free! I’d 
work, Irma — if only for a miserable pittance, 
I’d work, and work, until I’d made some sort 
of a way for myself — and for you! But I 
can’t get clear! I can't!” His voice broke 
oddly. 

Again into the girl’s eyes there swept that 


114 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


look of tenderness, of yearning pity — a look 
unconsciously maternal, very sweet. She gave 
her hands to him fully, and impulsively Terry 
bent his head to kiss them. 

“I feel such a worthless cumberer of the 
earth, Irma! Such a sorry figure of a man! 
I’ve health, and strength by far above the 
average, yet here I am, an idler, a gambler, 
with not one day of good hard honest labour 
to my credit. I never felt quite like this 
before — before I met you. I didn’t think 
how I was wasting the gifts the gods have 
given me. I didn’t realize the utter useless¬ 
ness of my existence. I thought myself a rich 
man’s son until the poor old pater died and 
I woke up to the fact that for years he had 
been living on his capital, royally, giving me 
no smallest hint of the true state of affairs, 
leaving me blissfully ignorant of the fact that 
there would be practically nothing left when 
he was gone, and that it would be up to me to 
get me a living by some means or another. 
He’d gambled, recklessly, sublimely confident 
of winning back all that he had lost. And 
his blood is in my veins. I had gambled, 
too — careless, really, whether or not I won. 
When I discovered the truth — that I was 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


115 


poor, instead of rich — I continued to gamble, 
but on a larger scale. Like the pater, I was 
confident of winning. Instead, I always lost! ” 

He lifted his head and looked at her 
shadowy profile. “But you know all that, 
Irma; I told you long ago. How I parted 
with the little the pater left; how I’ve got 
into debt time after time, and borrowed to 
pay those debts at an interest that has spelled 
ruin . . . absolute ruin! ” 

“Terry! ” Irma spoke sharply, and the boy, 
dropping her hands, turned suddenly away. 

“It amounts to that, doesn’t it?” he asked, 
very low, half sullenly, yet with such a bitter 
despair that she caught her breath. “I can’t 
meet my debts — I can’t meet my debts 
... God knows what will be the end of 
it all!” 

“Terry!” The word was a frightened 
whisper. 

He wheeled swiftly about and caught her 
to him again. “What a brute I am!” he 
cried contritely. “Worrying you, when you 
have worry enough of your own. But, oh, 
my dear! Every day I want you more. 
Every day I realize that I am putting myself 
further out of reach of you — and that the 


116 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


fault is my own! That I have only my own 
damned folly to thank! ” 

“Oh, Terry! ” Irma whispered. “Oh, Terry 
t . . . Terry . . 

He held her closer, kissing her hair in the 
darkness. “Dear heart! And when my 
thoughts are of the blackest” — he went on 
eagerly—“then I remember that you love me! 
Then, it seems to me, there can be nothing 
really wrong with the scheme of things, after 
all! The little old world’s going round and 
round, and the jolly old sun is shining! And, 
sure, heart of my heart” — the old, optimistic 
Terry was speaking now — “it’s going on 
shining, for us, in spite of the debts, and the 
duns, and the difficulties in our path. The 
divil take the lot of ’em, say I! ” 

Irma laughed. Terry’s grip of her tight¬ 
ened. He put a finger beneath her chin and 
tipped her face up. 

“A kiss will make a new man of me, sweet¬ 
ness!” he declared; and unresisting, smiling, 
but with the tears in her eyes, she gave her lips 
to his. When she drew away, she was still 
smiling, unsteadily. Terry in this mood 
always swept her off her feet, carried her out 
of herself, made her remember that they were 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 117 


young, with the world before them, and very 
wonderfully in love. She stood without 
speaking, and after a moment Terry said, 
sobering again: 

“What’s Dudley think about — this Hark- 
ness business?” 

Irma frowned. “He — Dud — knows I 
don’t like Kyrle Harkness. He knows that 
he is paying me attention ...” She stopped, 
hesitated, and added quickly: “Dudley can’t 
do anything, Terry. I mean, to begin with, 
he doesn’t quite realize —yet — that you and 
I seriously care. You’re his best friend; I 
don’t think it occurs to him that I’m grown 
up! When father or mother utter disapproving 
things regarding your — your friendship with 
me, Dud just laughs, in that big, indulgent 
way of his, and — more or less politely — tells 
them not to be idiotic.” She slid a slim hand 
into his. “He doesn’t understand. If he did, 
he couldn’t help. He’s the dearest brother 
in the world, generous to a fault — but he 
can’t work miracles. The family is poor. 
Dudley isn’t poor, because of inheriting a 
maiden aunt’s modestly substantial fortune, 
and because he works, and makes money out 
of those plays and stories of his . k .. t . Ye 


118 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 

gods! Imagine a Farrance working, and 
making money! ” She pulled her fingers away, 
shrugging. “He helps. But he doesn’t realize 
what a mess father and mother have made 
of things. I’m not going to enlighten him. 
Certainly they are not — they are just a bit 
scared of Dudley. And then, he has his own 
life to live. It wouldn’t be fair to worry him 
with my troubles.” 

“But he’s your brother!” Terry exploded 
hotly. 

“I know. And he’d do anything in the 
world for me. But, as I say, he can’t work 
miracles. Besides” — she laughed with a sud¬ 
den, sympathetic softness — “he’s absorbed in 
his own affair of the heart just at present. 
It strikes me that my fond brother is going 
to find himself in much the same boat as 
myself! Father’d drop dead of apoplexy if he 
imagined Dud was seriously in love with this 
bewilderingly pretty Lola Arnaut person.” 

“Is he?” Terry’s interest was immediately 
aroused. 

Irma nodded. “I think so. When I first 
met her, I didn’t think so. I thought he just 
admired her, as he admires every really pretty 
woman he meets. And I wasn’t surprised. 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 119 


She didn’t strike me as having anything more 
lovable — not really lovable, you know — 
than her beauty. But to-day she was 
different; quite different. I don’t know how, 
but she appealed to me; I liked her. I could 
understand Dudley liking her — and more 
than liking her. Personally, I’ve decided that 
Lola Arnaut is a girl I’d like to see a good 
deal more of. She’s puzzling, and fascinating, 
and intriguing . . . There’s the gong! 
Terry, you’ve got to go!” She pushed him 
before her to the door. 

At it he paused and caught her wrists 
lightly. “Irma! You do love me? You’ll 
always love me?” There was a half-scared 
pleading in his deep young voice that made 
her think of a small, small boy, begging reas¬ 
surance, comfort, and her throat contracted. 
Impulsively she reached up and, catching him 
by the lapels of his coat, drew him close, tilting 
her face up to his. 

“Always!” she assured him. “Always — 
always — always /” And added, under her 
breath, when the door had closed upon him, 
her hands over her eyes — “Always! — what¬ 
ever happens! . .. 


XIII 


Outside the Farrances , house Terry stood 
hesitant, gloom once more descending upon 
him. The touch of those absurdly small, 
beautifully shaped hands of Inna’s still 
thrilled him, but while his eyes were tender 
at the recollection they were sombre too. 

His thoughts were not happy ones. A 
consuming jealousy of Kyrle Harkness pos¬ 
sessed him, and a queer, indefinable fear. 
Irma’s mood had left him strangely chilled. 
Her announcement of Harkness’s proposal 
had enraged him — but it had frightened him 
too. Her defence of the other man Terry 
found even more alarming. Yet he knew it 
to be just. Kyrle Harkness might be of lower 
birth than themselves, he might be a social 
climber, but there was nothing vulgar in his 
make-up. His ease of manner might be 
veneer, but there was the charm of a kindly 
nature beneath it. Ambitious, he was; quite 
probably hard. But that hardness showed 
not at all in his intercourse with those whom 
he called friends and acquaintances. As a 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 121 


companion he was pleasant, unostentatious, 
and perfectly self-possessed. He had a full 
appreciation of his own importance, but he 
did not exaggerate it, nor was he in the 
slightest degree overbearing. Altogether he 
was very likeable, and not at all of the type 
of nouveaux riches dear to the hearts of the 
caricaturists. 

These facts, Terry was shrewd enough to 
realize, made him the more dangerous as a 
rival. Irma did not like the man, he knew. 
But, in the face of his good qualities, she 
could not, reasonably, acutely dislike him. 

Swinging down the street, the boy laughed 
rather bitterly. An optimist born, to-night he 
was almost wearily pessimistic. Had he not 
been so sure of Irma’s love, he would have 
regarded Harkness as a rival truly formidable, 
especially under such circumstances. 

Terry had been Dudley Farrance’s friend 
— perhaps his best friend — for years. Irma 
he had known since her flapper stage, and 
had loved her from the moment she had boxed 
his ears in repayment of his first audacious 
kiss. He knew the Farrances’ position much 
as he knew his own. They had never been 
rich. Now, frankly, they were poor. The 


122 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


'elder Farrance was an irritable, sharp- 
tempered man, dictatorial and impatient. Of 
late years he had been suffering from a con¬ 
dition of health that made it necessary for 
those about him to give in to his least whim, 
lest a sudden seizure, following shock, or 
anger, or over-excitement, should result in his 
death. 

His wife was a querulous woman, obsti¬ 
nately, if plaintively, determined to have her 
way with her kin, if not with the world 
at large, and with a very great opinion of 
her own importance. Husband and wife were 
reckless of money where the upkeep of their 
position was concerned. They not only 
expected, but intended, that each of their 
children should make a brilliant match. To 
this end Mrs. Farrance, at any rate, gave her 
days, all her time and thought; dressed her¬ 
self and her daughter exquisitely, artistically, 
and expensively; entertained, and was enter¬ 
tained, outwardly aloof, charmingly gracious, 
apparently haughtily indifferent to the match¬ 
making going on about her. Within, she 
was as consumed by eagerness as any fond 
mother angling for a matrimonial fish. But 
she had found Irma, like her son, somewhat 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 123 


unsatisfactory bait. Brother and sister had 
ideas of their own, which did not agree with 
the ideas and dogmas of their parents. 
Dudley, enraged and indignant at his mother’s 
constant efforts to interest him in only the 
wealthy unmarried girls of their circle, and 
made superbly independent by a not unsub¬ 
stantial legacy from a relative whose existence 
he had forgotten, had set up housekeeping 
for himself in bachelor luxury, and concen¬ 
trated upon achieving a measure of literary 
prominence, not without success. 

Under such circumstances he might be 
termed wealthy; but Fate had not been so 
kind to his sister. These things Terry knew, 
and had known for a long time. His own 
position he had made plain in his late inter¬ 
view with Irma — and many times previously. 
His father, a gambler born, had played ducks 
and drakes with all of his income and most 
of his capital. His son, bitten by the same 
fever, had, upon inheriting it, dissipated the 
scant remainder of that capital. He was, 
almost literally, penniless. And Kyrle Hark- 
ness, the millionaire, was suitor for the hand 
of the girl he loved. 

The boy was in a black mood, and at a 


124 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 

loose end. And then, unexpectedly, his 
thoughts drifted to Lola Arnaut. After a 
moment of thought, he hailed a taxi and gave 
her address. The woman, Sally, admitted him 
to the flat. He lifted his brows in surprise 
as he bade her good evening. 

“Not gone, Sally?” he questioned. “Miss 
Arnaut got a party on?” 

Sally shook her head and took his hat and 
stick. “No, sir. More like an attack of 
nerves. All on the jump, she’s been, ever since 
she pulled off that contract with Mr. Van 
Bevan! Can’t make her out, I can’t. Doesn’t 
seem to know where she is or what she’s doin’, 
half the time.” 

She jerked a thumb towards the closed 
door of the sitting-room. “She’s in there, 
readin’. Readin’! Her as hardly ever picked 
a book up in a week. But me bein’ here’s 
owin’ to her seemin’ so queer I thought she 
was goin’ to be ill, and I suggested stayin’ 
overnight. Jumped at it, she did, so I’m livin’ 
in, now. Rather like it, ’specially as she 
seems to have forgotten her tantrums! 
Extraordinarily changed, she is, Mr. Terry, 
sir. You wouldn’t believe.” 

She chuckled suddenly. “Lor’, but she’s 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 12 5 


been playin' a fine old game with the lot of us, 
an' no mistake. Can’t make it out, myself; 
but I take off my hat to her for a bloomin’ 
wonder! Talk about lyin’ low and waiting 
for your chance. She’s been lyin’ low, all 
right. Not been wasting any energy on an 
indifferent show, Miss Lola hasn’t. Reckon 
folks’ll sit up and take notice when the 
Van Bevan show opens ... Go right in, 
sir.” 

Terry obeyed. Binny, on a cushion by the 
fire, a suede-covered book on her knee, her 
face intent and rather pale, looked up quickly 
at his entrance, such surprise in her eyes that 
he halted. 

“Just ran in to be cheered up!” he ex¬ 
plained. “Got a fit of the blues, and want 
to be made happy. Didn’t hope to catch 
you in, but if you’re not doing anything else, 
come and have dinner with me, there’s a dear 
soul!” 

He took her rather limp hand and smiled at 
her. Then he went across to the mantelpiece, 
and stood ruffling and smoothing his hair alter¬ 
nately. Binny looked at him, frowning and 
perplexed. It had become evident, unex¬ 
pectedly, that this young man was also on 


126 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


terms of friendship with her, and, recovering 
her poise, hastily reminding herself that she 
was Lola Arnaut and not Binny Clay, she 
got to her feet. 

“What’s up?” she inquired. If surprised, 
she was frankly interested; unconsciously, 
looking at the bent red head, her voice 
warmed to sympathy. 

Terry, instantly conscious of it, swung 
round, throwing out his hands. “Every¬ 
thing!” he announced. “Every darn thing 
that can be wrong! I — I’m feeling right 
down murderous, to-night, Lola! I’d like to 
pound quite a lot of people to a jelly, but 
there’s one person in particular I could kill 
outright, in cold blood!” 

“O — oh!” Binny opened wide eyes. 
“Who’s that?” she demanded. 

Terry was rumpling his hair again. “A 
mysterious, cheating divil who’s making a 
fortune by thieving other folks’ money,” he 
retorted. “Name of Clay!” He looked up 
at Binny’s gasp, and added, savagely: “Benny 
Clay!” 


XIV 


Binny, gasping audibly, caught at the back of 
the chair from which she had risen, and sank 
weakly into it again. Every vestige of colour 
had fled from her cheeks. Her eyes, wide and 
dark with amaze and apprehension, clung to 
Terry’s. She felt suddenly cold; she was 
utterly bewildered and taken aback. She 
made no attempt to speak. Speech at that 
moment was quite beyond her. She moistened 
dry lips with the tip of her tongue, and waited, 
dumbly. 

Terry, with scarcely a glance at her, and 
supremely unaware of her agitation, had 
begun to stride up and down the room. His 
big form seemed to fill it, and Binny watched 
him, fascinated. 

“Of all the blood-suckers,” he proceeded 
forcefully, “Benny Clay’s the worst. Once 
you’re in his clutches, you can never get out 
of them again! He’s got the strangle-hold of 
an octopus! The appetite of a shark. The 
— the —” He broke off. 

Binny was making queer little hysterical 
sounds which were nearer tears than laughter. 


128 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


She controlled herself as she met his aston¬ 
ished glance. “He!” — she echoed — “He! 
— Benny Clay ... Was it Benny Clay 
you said, or — or —” She brought herself up 
short. 

Terry waved his hands, slightly puzzled, 
but still too deeply absorbed in his own 
troubles to be more than passingly so. “Yes. 
Benny Clay. Benjamin Clay; the money¬ 
lender, you know!” 

Binny expelled a long, deep breath. An 
immense relief enveloped her; she began to 
laugh again, almost idiotically, it seemed to 
her. The conjunction of the name of Clay 
with another so remarkably like her own as 
“Benny,” and spoken of in such terms as 
Terry had just used, had given her a real 
shock. She still felt a little hysterical, but 
that faint perplexity in Terry’s eyes warned 
her to be on guard. When at last she spoke, 
it was more or less steadily. 

“No, I don’t know —” She stopped short 
again. 

Terry’s eyes had flashed up; he looked at 
her wonderingly. “Not? Thought I heard 
Gustav grousing to you furiously the other 
night about him.” 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 129 


A flicker of uneasiness crossed Binny’s face. 
She turned it quickly away. “Was he? I 
didn’t notice. I” — there was the faintest 
possible note of grimness in her voice, a subtle 
suggestion of distaste that made Terry look 
at her again — “I don’t always listen to what 
Mr. De Mille says.” 

This time Terry’s brows disappeared up 
beneath the fringe of red hair he had ruffled 
down onto his forehead. “Mr. De Mille!” He 
echoed. “By George, Lola, since when this 
thusness? Thought you and Gustav were 
thick as thieves — pals of the palliest, don’t 
you know!” 

Binny winced ever so slightly, and into 
her hidden eyes there leaped a flame — a glow 
of bitter anger against the person in question 
— a glint of angry fear, swept away a moment 
later by a passion of pity for that woman 
who had, indeed, been “thick as thieves” with 
De Mille, and, as far as Binny was able to 
conclude, literally as well as figuratively. 

“Thought you couldn’t do without De Mille 
at any price — that you depended upon him 
for all your accompaniments and coach¬ 
ing . . .” 

“Me?” Binny flashed half-indignant eyes 


130 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


upon him, and then, remembering herself in 
time, shrugged and smiled. There had been 
nothing offensive or impertinent in O’Farrer’s 
comments and questions, just a boyish sur¬ 
prise and curiosity. 

Binny made a little, half-apologetic move¬ 
ment of her hands. “Not so much,” she 
observed guardedly — “as perhaps folks have 
thought ...” She hesitated. 

Terry paused in front of her, momentarily 
forgetful of himself and his worries in the 
interest she had roused. He had never liked 
De Mille; like Farrance he had regretted the 
intimacy which existed between Lola and the 
man who seemed to have with her an undue 
influence. 

“Have you and De Mille quarrelled, then?” 
he demanded. His tone was so hopeful that 
Binny smiled irrepressibly, flickering a swift, 
searching glance over him. 

She was wondering how old might be the 
evident friendship between herself and this 
big, clumsy, awkward boy, with his blue eyes 
and oddly charming manner. She shook her 
head slowly. “Oh — no. Only things are 
very different now, you see. I mean, Van 
Bevan’s show is quite a different affair from 
Scarlossi’s.” 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 131 


Terry grinned. “I’ll say it is! I say, Lola, 
I haven’t properly congratulated you yet, but 
I’m no end glad you’ve got this chance. And 
— and that old Van Bevan’s so pleased. I 
couldn’t believe Dudley when he told me 
you’d made such an impression that you’ve 
got little Lottie What’s-her-name’s place! I’m 
not altogether certain that I believe it now. 
Er — I mean, you know, you’ve never taken 
a really big part before, have you?” 

Binny smiled at him, a slow, glowing smile 
that warmed and lighted her whole face. 
“No,” she agreed. “Like you, I find it diffi¬ 
cult to believe.” 

“And you don’t funk it?” Terry’s voice 
was frankly amazed. He was looking at her 
with new curiosity and interest, the puzzle¬ 
ment growing in his gaze. 

She felt it, and flushed, shaking her head. 
“No. I know I can do what Mr. Van Bevan 
wants — and Mr. Dallas. Listen!” 

She got up abruptly and went to the piano. 
Upon the rack stood a song, open. A pile 
of new music was on the top of the piano. 
Binny touched a chord, hesitantly, lightly. 
She had never, in all her drab days, had any 
chance to learn, even sketchily, the intrica- 


132 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


cies of that much-abused instrument, but the 
latent love of music in her soul made it pos¬ 
sible for her to improvise an incorrect though 
adequate accompaniment to any song she 
wanted to sing. 

“This is ‘Daisies/ ” she told Terry, over 
her shoulder. “The song they made such a 
fuss about. I’d sing the new ones, but I can’t 
accompany myself ...” 

She bit her lip sharply at the confession. 
Rather hastily, before the boy, sauntering 
towards her, could answer, she began to sing. 
Abruptly, halfway towards her, Terry 
stopped. He muttered something indistinctly, 
and waited. When she had finished, she 
turned to him, her lips apart, half-nervous 
questioning in her eyes. 

Terry was smoothing his red hair as 
earnestly and effectively as before he had 
ruffled it. Making no comment at all, he 
sat down upon the cushioned bench before 
the piano. 

“Let’s have a shot at the others,” he sug¬ 
gested. “If they’re not too tricksy, I dare 
say I’ll manage, and if I can’t I’ll improvise. 
You’re usually gracious enough to say I make 
a fairly good substitute for our friend Gustav 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 133 


— though, I admit, not when you were aspir¬ 
ing to Ivo Dallas’s music. Here goes!” 

Binny shot him a sharp glance, opened her 
lips, and then, instead of speaking, began to 
sing again. Terry O’Farrer was an amateur 
of no mean ability. Binny, watching his 
strong, sensitive, rather beautiful hands flying 
over the keys, had further reason for reflection 
and surprise. In a moment the flat was ring¬ 
ing with the sound of their combined efforts, 
and in the kitchen Sally threw her hands to 
Heaven and demanded of Providence what 
miracle had befallen the world during the 
last few days. 

“Bewitched, and that’s what she is!” she 
proclaimed, her head on one side. “The devil 
or the fairies have got into her, and no mistake 
about that. . . . O-oh, la-la . t . la-la-la 

. . la-la — la-ah!” 

Inspired by the melody and the ring of 
Binny’s young voice, Sally, secure behind 
the kitchen door, indulged in a voice-trial of 
her own. In the sitting-room Binny, rapidly 
becoming lost in the spell of Dallas’s tricksy, 
catchy, oddly haunting music, first swayed as 
she sang, then began to dance. Over his 
shoulder, happily swept clear away from his 


134 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


previous gloomy reflections, Terry watched 
her. He stopped playing so abruptly that 
the girl stumbled in her step, and faced him, 
panting, questioning, slender arms still 
uplifted. 

Terry took his hands off the keys and 
stood up. “No wonder you knocked ’em flat 
the other night!” he commented drily. “If 
you can keep that sort of thing up, Lola, 
you’ll be what is termed ‘The sensation of the 
season!’ The point is —can you? If so — 
why the dickens have you maundered through 
every performance you’ve ever given like a 
lovely sugar-stick?” 

Binny grinned. It was a gamin-like grin, 
such as Terry had never seen distorting the 
red lips of Lola Arnaut, and it took him some¬ 
what aback. On her part, Binny was flushed, 
once more triumphant, free of nervous 
tremors. She found Terry O’Farrer stimu¬ 
lating. Once more, heart and soul, she hurled 
herself, enthusiastically, into the part that 
Fate had assigned to her. 

“ ’Cos,” she asserted, nodding, “I like to 
get folks guessing! Perhaps partly, too, be¬ 
cause I’m constitutionally — lazy!” 

This time Terry grinned. “Lazy — noth- 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 135 


ing!” he declared. “You’re a witch, that’s 
what you are, Lola! Or else you’re bewitched. 
I wouldn’t like to be quite sure.” 

Binny let her arms drop. She looked at 
him queerly out of eyes that had lost their 
light. Then she shook herself and laughed. 
“Bewitched — that’s it!” she assured him. 
“Utterly, absolutely, and completely be¬ 
witched!” 

Terry regarded her radiant face earnestly, 
aware of a subtle change in her that was some¬ 
how startling, but to which he could give no 
name, which he could not possibly define. He 
asked, abruptly, and with far more caution 
than he usually evinced: “But — is the be¬ 
witchment going to last?” 

Binny grew instantly sober. She looked 
past him, at nothing, her eyes contracting, her 
lips close shut. Then: “I don’t know!” she 
confessed. “Does bewitchment ever last? 
But — but — I do know that I’m going to 
carry this thing through. Vm going to! I’m 
going to work as I’ve never worked in my 
life — ” 

“I believe you,” Terry interpolated irre¬ 
pressibly; but she ignored him. 

“I’m going to make a success. Not one 


136 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


success, but many. I’m going to climb, up 
and up and up! The chance of my life has 
come to me and — I’ve grabbed it!” She 
flashed a sudden gleaming look at him, her 
slender body tense. “I’m going to hang on 
to it. Hang on until I’ve got where nobody 
can pull me down; nobody can take from me 
that which I’ve gained for myself! I’m going 
to make a place in the world that nobody, and 
nothing , can wrest from me . . . ” She 
broke off short, breathing rather quickly. The 
rose was deep in her cheeks, her eyes were 
like stars. 

Terry looked at her for several seconds in 
complete silence. “Sure!” he declared—“and 
I believe you! You’re that changed, Lola 
Arnaut, that yqur own mother wouldn’t know 
you, coming on you suddenly, as you are now. 
It’s meself believes the divil’s in it, I do so!” 

Binny drew a quick, hard breath. Then she 
laughed. It was a short, strangely unmusical 
little laugh, and her hand went for a minute 
to her breast. “Maybe,” she said after a 
pause, slowly — “maybe — he is!” 


XV 


“By the same token,” Terry remarked, cheer¬ 
fully, if not complimentarily, “what does our 
friend Gustav think about it all?” 

Binny made an abrupt, rather violent move¬ 
ment of impatience; again distaste, something 
of distress and uneasiness, showed in her eyes. 
“I don’t know! ” she returned shortly, “and — 
I don’t care!” There was a defiance in the 
declaration that suggested it was not alto¬ 
gether truthful. Binny herself was wonder¬ 
ing — and had been wondering for some time 
— as to the state of De Mille’s mind. She 
had, however, carefully and skilfully avoided 
finding out by meeting him, so far. 

The thought of him scared her a little, 
made her nervous. But it deterred her not 
one whit in her determination to go through 
with her part, to the very end, whatever that 
end might be. Nor did her dread of the man 
shake her implacable loathing of him; her 
grim decision to make him suffer, and, when 
the time should be ripe, to bring him to book 
for the crime that he had committed. 

But she did not want to think about him 


138 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


more frequently than was absolutely neces¬ 
sary; certainly not now. She hinted as much 
pretty plainly, adding swiftly: “You came to 
ask me to go to dinner with you, and to 
assist in ridding you of a fit of ‘blue devils.’ 
I’d love to come to dinner, but I mustn’t be 
late — and I’d like to go somewhere very 
quiet, where — where I shan’t meet people I 
know! I — I’m getting rather nervy. And 
rehearsals start Monday. Is there somewhere 
we can go so I do not need to dress? I could 
come right away, if so, and you could pour 
out your woes to me over dinner.” 

Terry agreeing, she disappeared, to return 
less than ten minutes later, a close-fitting 
toque on her head and a fur coat wrapped 
about her. 

Terry regarded her curiously. “Do you 
know,” he said, as they passed out of the 
flat and into the street, “enthusiasm is making 
you prettier! I’ve never seen you with so 
much colour! If you’re going to add increased 
beauty to unexpected talent, my dear, there’s 
no doubt of your success.” 

Binny flushed more warmly, her eyes 
asparkle. 

Hailing a taxi, Terry put her in. He said, 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 139 


as he seated himself by her side: “And what’s 
the idea, having Sally to live in, now? You 
are an incomprehensible person, Lola, my 
child! Only a few days ago you were declar¬ 
ing she got on your nerves, and that you 
hated a servant on top of you all the time, 
knowing exactly who came and went, and pry¬ 
ing into your affairs. And now — ” 

“Now I’ve changed my mind!” Her tone 
was conclusive. 

Terry hunched his broad shoulders and 
laughed. Throughout dinner he kept her 
amused, but as they were drinking coffee, she 
interrupted some idle remark, leaning nearer 
to him. 

“What’s been bothering you?” she asked. 
“Over this — this Benjamin Clay, I mean. 
You wanted to tell me?” 

Terry put down his cup slowly, his face 
clouding. The light went out of his eyes, 
the laughter from his lips. Binny watched 
him closely, and presently he made a nervous 
movement of his big hands. 

“Oh — it’s nothing. I mean, nothing in 
which you can help me. I oughtn’t to have 
spoken of it — bothered you. Only — you’ve 
always been pretty nice to me, Lola; really a 


140 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


chum — sympathetic, and all that! And I 
felt I wanted sympathy — some one to grouse 
to. To tell you the truth, I’m divilish 
miserable . He paused, staring som¬ 

brely into his cup. 

Binny did not speak at once. She was 
assimilating the knowledge that she and this 
big boy were friends, and that he was, appar¬ 
ently, accustomed to come to her for sympathy 
in some of his troubles, at any rate. Not yet 
sure of her ground, she said at last: “What’s 
this Benjamin Clay man got to do with it?” 

“Everything! At least, nearly everything. 
If I’d not been fool enough to get into his 
clutches, I shouldn’t be in the hole I am in 
now! I’m up to my ears in debt, and getting 
deeper every minute. I’ve borrowed from 
this man Clay at heavy interest — iniqui- 
tously heavy interest. I’ve been mad, of 
course, but I’ve always hoped my luck’d 
change — that some gamble or game or race 
would make me a winner, and set me on my 
feet! Instead, I’ve always lost! And now 
i. . He stopped. Suddenly, disturbingly, 
his young face looked very drawn and hag¬ 
gard; in his eyes was a fleeting look almost 
of desperation. 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 141 


Binny made a movement of her hand. She 
was a warm-hearted little person, naturally 
sympathetic, and while she had actually 
known Terry O’Farrer a mere matter of hours, 
she could understand readily that the real 
Lola had liked him; that every one must like 
him. Also she was intrigued and interested 
by his confession, conscious of a new, pleasure- 
able sense of importance, of a genuine pity 
for him. 

“Poor boy! ” she said, and there was an odd, 
maternal note in her voice that made him 
look up at her gratefully, comforted. “Can’t 
you go and see this Benjamin Clay person and 
— and talk things over with him? Ask him 
to — to wait, or something?” 

Terry laughed shortly. “My dear child! 
No one has ever seen Benjamin Clay. He’s 
perhaps one of the biggest money-lenders in 
England, the richest and the most unscrupu¬ 
lous. He’s hard to the core, and absolutely 
merciless. But these things I’ve heard, or 
know from experience. I’ve never seen him; 
as far as I can gather, no one else has — not 
Benjamin Clay himself. Of course there are 
confidential men in his employ with whom 
one has necessary business interviews; but 


142 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


Clay is never there, or, if he is, he’s never 
seen. Not that an interview would make the 
slightest difference!” 

Binny looked at him shrewdly. He met her 
gaze and smiled crookedly. 

“I oughtn’t to have bothered you. It’s 
not as if you could help. And moaning about 
what I’ve brought to pass with my own crass 
folly isn’t going to help matters.” 

“Then what’s going to happen?” 

Terry put down his coffee-cup with a crash. 
He looked older, grown haggard and drawn. 
Between Binny’s radiant figure and himself 
there rose a vision of Irma. He bit back a 
groan, and signalled to the waiter. 

“God knows!” he said, heavily. “Let’s 
go!” 

A little over an hour later, Binny was alone 
once more in her flat, drawn close to the 
sitting-room fire, a rose-shaded light above her 
head, Lola Arnaut’s suede-bound diary in her 
hands. Out in the kitchen Sally was ponder¬ 
ously moving about, and the girl drew a sigh. 
However Lola may have felt towards Sally, 
she was conscious of a sense of security at 
the woman’s presence; moreover, she was 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 143 


coming to the decision that Sally might have 
her faults, but that she had excellent qualities 
as well. Added to which much of the informa¬ 
tion Binny had gleaned from her in the last 
two days was exceedingly useful. 

She did not open the diary at once, but 
sat staring into the fire, her thoughts a jumble 
of the present, the past, and the future. Her 
own audacity frightened her; nevertheless, she 
was not without a triumphant sense of increas¬ 
ing sureness of her position as she surmounted 
each new difficulty. Already she was sinking 
her identity more and more certainly into that 
of her dead sister, without finding it necessary 
to relinquish, wholly, her own personality. 

She sighed at last, and turned the first page 
of the closely written book. The date above 
the first entry was of about two years pre¬ 
vious. 

Have decided to keep a diary. So much to 
write about since papa took me to Paris. Wish 
we’d never had to come back. After Paris 
even New York seems dull, and we shan’t be here 
more than another two weeks. Have been taking 
fresh lessons in singing, and just joined a new 
dancing class. . . . I’m a stick at dancing, and 
singing. I can tell by the expression of Signor 
D’Avaglia’s face when he’s teaching me. It’s 


144 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


rather vexing, especially as I love the stage so. 
I believe papa’s glad. In fact, I’m sure he is. 
He hates the stage, and everything to do with it. 
I wonder why? 

I went to Maudie Keen’s studio last evening 
to a little party. Maudie paints beautifully, and 
says she means to continue with it professionally, 
even though she is the daughter of fearfully 
wealthy people. . . . They’ve rented her a 
perfectly glorious studio. ... It was great 
fun. Quite a lot of well-known professional 
people were there, singers and artists and actors. 
I loved it. Maudie says I look as though I’m 
just cut out for the stage, and I believe I am. 
Two or three people said so too, and of course 
I have got looks. I wonder what my mother was 
like. She died when I was born, and papa never 
speaks of her, and there are no pictures. 

I met a man, towards the end of the evening, 
who fascinated me fearfully. His name’s 
De Mille — Gustav De Mille. 

Binny put the book down on her knees, her 
eyes dilating ever so slightly. Gustav 
De Mille. Involuntarily, at the mere thought 
of the name, the man, she shivered. Presently 
she read on: 

Mr. De Mille’s delightful. He never took his 
eyes off me all evening, after Maudie introduced 
us. . . . He said he thought at first I 

was on the stage, and wondered I wasn’t. 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 145 


He said with my looks I’d make a terrific 
stir, and he didn’t sound as if he was just 
flattering, like some of the others. ... He saw 
me home. I believe it wouldn’t be at all difficult 
to fall in love with him; he’s most fascinat¬ 
ing. . . . 

Of course he doesn’t belong to our set. I was 
talking to papa about him, and he seemed not at 
all pleased. . . . Papa’s dreadfully old- 

fashioned. 

Mr. De Mille called the other day. Papa saw 
him. He wasn’t favourably impressed, and he 
wants me not to see any more of him. ... I 
call it unkind and unreasonable. 

We’re going back home a week earlier than 
we’d arranged. I believe because papa wants to 
get me away from these “stage folk” as he calls 
them. I do think it’s too bad. Lakefield’s the 
dullest spot in the whole of New England, I do 
believe — and every one within miles is a frump! 
I don’t know how I shall bear it. 

Saw Mr. De Mille the day before we left New 
York. He asked if he might write, and of course 
I said, “Yes.” He brought me some perfectly 
lovely American Beauties. 

I rather fancy I’ve fallen in love with him. . . . 
In fact, I’m sure I have! . . . 

Sally appeared suddenly at the door. Be¬ 
hind her the telephone was ringing furiously. 

“I expect,” the woman announced with 


146 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


marked disapproval, “that’s Mr. De Mille on 
the ’phone again. He rang you thiee tinges 
while you were out. He wants to come rouM. 
What’ll I say if it is him?” 

Binny closed the diary quickly and moved 
with it to the desk. Then she changed her 
mind and came back to the fire. Her face 
was rather pale, but there was a curious, 
growing, hard light in her eyes. She stood for 
a moment, the book held up against her 
breast. Then she dropped back into her 
chair. “Tell him I’ll see him in half an hour,” 


XVI 


During that half-hour Binny continued as¬ 
siduously to peruse the diary, reading rapidly, 
but with extreme care, missing no detail that 
might be of importance. The expression of 
her down-bent, earnest face changed many 
times as the clearly written words passed 
before her; from interest to pity, from pity 
to anger, from anger to impatience, wonder¬ 
ment, scorn. 

Lola Arnaut had been, apparently, a young 
person whose days were very idle, and she 
had spent a great part of them in putting 
down many of her thoughts on paper, and 
every trivial happening. Her story was as 
clear to Binny as if she had heard it from the 
dead girl’s own lips. And perhaps she came 
to feel the strong tie of their relationship more 
impressively than she would ever have felt it 
had she come in touch with Lola while living. 
In any case, even that short half-hour’s read¬ 
ing put her in possession of facts which were 
invaluable, and the knowledge of which 
strengthened her position so greatly that such 


148 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


nervousness and panic as had remained with 
her until now was rapidly passing away. 

It was a human little document, this diary, 
a revelation of Lola’s nature and character¬ 
istics as much as of the events of her life. 
There were times when the tears rose to 
Binny’s eyes, and she wished that she might 
have known this sister of hers, have given to 
the weaker nature that protection and under¬ 
standing and guidance in the ways of a hard 
world which it had so sorely needed. Daugh¬ 
ters of the same mother, they had been born 
under such utterly different circumstances, 
had grown to bloom of womanhood as apart 
as a sturdy, hardily reared geranium and a 
delicate, hothouse orchid. The orchid had 
withered and died upon transplantation. The 
geranium had survived, and was taking on 
new bloom and new strength in finer soil. 

The first part of the diary was almost solely 
given up to Lola’s impressions of Paris, to 
which, apparently, her father had recently 
taken her, and to descriptions of her New 
England surroundings, which suffered sadly in 
comparison with Paris and New York. 

This place grows more dead alive every day. 
I never noticed it before I went to Paris, and to 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 149 


New York, but now I’m unutterably bored. And 
papa can’t understand. He’s of another gener¬ 
ation, and he loves the place. I don’t believe he’d 
have taken me to Paris if he hadn’t had to go 
on business, and thought a visit there was a neces¬ 
sary part of my education. He treats me like 
a child, still, and it irritates me so! I want to 
know if he thinks I’m going on living here for¬ 
ever? I’d stifle. I want life, light, laughter — 
I’m beautiful! Really beautiful. I know it; I 
can’t help knowing it, and every one who looks 
at me tells me so. 

I don’t mean to be conceited. But I can’t see 
wasting beauty like mine in a sleepy New Eng¬ 
land place like this. I wonder if mother was 
beautiful. I asked papa once. I know he never 
speaks of her if he can help it. I believe he 
loves her as much as the day she died, though 
that was when I was born! . . . and the pain of 
her loss is as great. He didn’t answer at once. 
Then he said: “Yes. You are extraordinarily like 
her, except that your eyes are not so wonderful. 
Hers were so much less restless, so much more 
gentle. . . . Your mother had the loveliest eyes 
in the world! But when I told her so she laughed 
— just laughed, and assured me that every mem¬ 
ber of her family had eyes identical with hers, 
from the smallest and furthest removed cousin 
to the plainest great-aunt! She had a sense of 
humour, your mother — but I think she meant it.” 

Here Binny drew a deep breath, and her 


150 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


own eyes, wonderful, changeful, dwelt for a 
long moment on the flames. There was a little 
lump in her throat and an ache at her heart. 
She had missed so much — she, and Lola, too, 
in never knowing that mother. So much of 
sweetness, so much to remember! 

She shook herself, and turned the pages of 
the diary slowly, reading on: 

I don’t know why I’ve put all that down. I 
don’t know why I should be writing of mother 
at all, just now — except that I’m lonely, and 
restless, and papa doesn’t understand. He never 
has understood. If I hadn’t been mother’s child, 
he wouldn’t care for me at all. He gave all the 
best of him to her; all his love — and she has 
it still! I wouldn’t mind that, if he’d let me 
be a bit freer. . . . He’s a dear, of course. He 
gives me everything any girl could want, except 
that which my blood is crying out for — change, 
life, laughter, admiration — love! I want all of 
it! 


Again Binny looked at the fire. Again her 
throat contracted. She had felt the same — 
just the same. She had craved for love and 
light and laughter. Only she had had none 
of those things which had made Lola’s life 
smooth. She had had to fight, all through 
life, like the veriest gutter cat or dog for 


CHILD RE N OF CHANCE 151 


a bare living, to fend for herself with the odds 
of life against her, to break a way through to 
the sunshine. 

Reading Lola’s diary, she did not alto¬ 
gether regret it. Lola’s description of the 
existence of a woman of ease and leisure and, 
obviously, wealth, was enlightening. It left 
much to be said, after all, for the rough- 
and-tumble manner in which she herself had 
attained to womanhood. Binny concluded 
that to have roughed it, literally, during the 
early days of young girlhood was a condition 
of things not to be despised. One’s defences 
against the world and the people in it were 
so much more sure! In the vernacular of 
Binny’s particular world, “Lola hadn’t stood 
a dog’s chance!” 

And I’m going to have it — them, I mean. 
All of them. Pleasure, attention, success . . . 
and the only way I can see of getting them is 
going on the stage. 

Of course father would have a fit at the mere 
suggestion. And I do know I haven’t much real 
ability . . . but Maudie says I’d make a hit, 
and Gustav De Mille says I’d soon learn the 
ropes. 

He’s written several times; and once he’s been 
quite close here. I saw him. I made an excuse 


152 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


to go, and we had a ripping time — Gustav was 
accompanying for a troupe engaged by the man¬ 
agement of a newly opening hotel. Gustav was 
delightful. He told me he is going over to 
England with a new show. ... He begged me 
to join it. How I wish I could! 

I really do love Gustav, and I’m sure — now 
— he loves me! I don’t know — the whole world 
seems changed — topsy-turvy — wonderful! 

“Poor kid!” The exclamation was heart¬ 
felt. With a sharp upward glance at the clock, 
Binny turned another page. 

Gustav’s going almost at once! I can’t bear it! 
I can’t bear to be left here ... 7 won't. . . . 

I’ve told papa I want to go on the stage. He’s 
furious. He hates the stage. It appears my 
mother was on the stage for a little while. . . . 
I suppose that’s why I love it so. 

I’ve seen Gustav. I made an excuse to go to 
New York, for some shopping. He begs me to 
join the company, says he can get me a part. I’d 
love it — love it! And, after all, my life’s my 
own. I want to go — I want to! 

After this entry some considerable time 
must have elapsed, Binny decided. The next 
entry was undated, but it was made in 
England. 

The last few weeks have been like some weird, 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 1 S3 


disturbing dream! I'd no idea people on the stage 
worked so hard. I ache in every limb ever since 
I've been in England! I hardly remember really 
what happened from the time I ran away. I took 
nothing but a few Paris frocks, and my jewels. 
They were my own, given to me every birthday, 
so I'd a right to them. Gustav is looking after 
them for me. He says they are worth quite a 
lot. . . . 

Gustav has seemed much cooler of late. It 
appears I'm an awful stick. . . . And things 
are so expensive. Gustav had to sell nearly all 
the jewels, and says owing to the market he could 
only get a third of what he had expected. The 
stage isn't a bit what I thought. I could cry, 
sometimes — and these lodgings are so dingy. 

I wrote to papa ... I hadn’t meant to, but 
I’m not used to having no money. He wrote back 
through his solicitors saying he never wishes to 
hear from me again. Also that he will not give 
me a farthing — ever; will never forgive me. 

Another interval followed, another entry, 
hurriedly scrawled, after the lapse of several 
weeks. 

I've been an utter fool. I can see it now. Only 
it's too late! I haven’t any talent; I never shall 
have. I've only looks. And, as Gustav points 
out, nastily, looks aren’t substantial enough for 
a lasting place on the stage. 

Gustav is utterly changed. He's irritable and 


154 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


nervy. He brings a lot of people to these rooms 
to play cards — people I don’t like, and don’t 
understand. . . . With the glamour off, the 
stage is a horrible place! I admit I was never 
meant to adorn it. And Gustav frightens me, 
sometimes. He’s queer, down one minute, up the 
next, without a penny for weeks, and then affluent. 
Some of the people who come here are very rich. 
They are most of them men, but there are a few 
women. Some of the women have lovely jewels. 
I’m rather puzzled about that. Gustav sent me 
with a necklace io such a funny little man one day. 
He told me to shut up when I asked him where it 
had come from. He had been drinking, or I don’t 
think he’d have let me know what I was taking 
to the man — anyway, we got a lot of money for 
it. And then, quite a fortnight later, one of the 
women was telling us all how she’d lost a neck¬ 
lace one night a*ter we’d been playing here. . . . 
She’d made all sorts of inquiries, but it was never 
traced. Gustav gave her all sorts of good advice, 
but there was a funny look in his eyes. . . . 
I’m frightened 1 

Binny’s lips compressed; her eyes were very 
bright. She turned so the light shone more 
fully on the writing in the book, less clear 
now, speaking of agitation in every uncertain 
character. 

I believe I hate Gustav! I know now I never 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 155 


loved him. It’s all been glamour — glamour — 
glamour! But I’ve burned my boats, irrevocably. 
I’ve got to stick to it, right through to the bitter 
end — whatever the end may be, and, sometimes 
I wonder! Gustav doesn’t care either. He never 
did. He saw a money-making proposition in me 
— thought papa’d come round, make things easy 
for me for life — he’s said as much. And then, 
those jewels of mine were worth having . . . 
and my looks are still marketable, if we can find 
the right market! Gustav again, though I’m hard 
enough now to say very bitter things! 

. . . Luck at last! Gustav introduced me to 
Scarlossi, of Scarlossi’s Theatre! And I’ve made 
a hit! Scarlossi’s enthusiastic; he hasn’t so much 
an eye for talent as for looks! Makes it a habit 
to find the beauties, and star them, irrespective 
of their merits! He’s starring me! Me! Lola 
Arnaut! I’m glad I took that name, it’s so 
deliciously French! — And it seems to me that 
girls recruited from France, or Spain, or Italy 
are so much more attractive to the public than 
just English girls. ... I mean, in England, 
of course. . . . The newspaper stuff is awfully 
amusing; Scarlossi’s booming me hard. All about 
how I’m an American millionaire’s daughter, with 
French blood in my veins, and ran away from 
home because I was tired of being idle! . . . 
Half of it piffle, of course, but some of it truth! 
I’m so excited! Perhaps, after all, everything 
will be well. Even Gustav is more like he used 
to be, and ever so bucked! 


156 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 

Scarlossi’s going to give me a part, and a decent 
salary. . . . I’ve a flat of my own now. A duck? 
I’m being talked about everywhere, pictures 
in all the papers, and interviews! It’s a duck — 
I’ve made it awfully luxurious, just the sort of 
a flat a star ought to have, I think — and a white 
cat! 

I’m sorry now about the cat! They tell me 
white cats are unlucky! . . . Ugh! As if I 
hadn’t been unlucky enough. . . . And I’ve a 
servant. Such an oddity — called Sally! I be¬ 
lieve she’s really a good-hearted person, but she 
gets on my nerves. Will “deary” me — at least, 
she did till I lost my temper and raged at her! 
I’m not used to servants who take liberties; but 
she’s awfully efficient, though disgustingly curi¬ 
ous ! She was a dresser once, and since has been 
in service with actresses — so she knows the 
ropes. I’m sure she looks upon me as horribly 
stuck up, and unsympathetic, but I can’t help it. 
... I was born to other things, and I oughtn’t 
to have left them! 

Binny grinned, suddenly and irrepressibly. 
Poor Sally. She was beginning now to under¬ 
stand much of that good woman’s puzzlement. 
Her own cheery acceptance of Sally’s rough- 
and-ready service must be so utterly different 
from Lola’s aloof disapproval. 

She wanted to live in, but I wouldn’t have it. 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 157 

I couldn’t, very well — Gustav so often drinks, 
and brings such queer people here sometimes . . . 
and servants talk so abominably. I couldn’t 
bear to know Sally was only a yard across the 
hall during these hateful card parties! 

I still find the stage hard, though I’ve nothing 
much to do but look charming in perfectly 
gorgeous gowns! . . . Gustav brought two new 
men here the other night. One is called Terry 
O’Farrer — a great big chap, with the dearest, 
jolliest smile and a pair of positively melting Irish 
eyes in the most freckled face I’ve ever seen! 
He’s an insatiable gambler, and always loses. At 
least—I’ve my doubts about that sometimes. . . . 
He’s a real dear, and we’ve chummed up quite 
a lot. He’s one of those irresponsible, impulsive, 
lovable people who eat sympathy. It appears he’s 
head over heels in love — as well as in debt. The 
girl is the sister of the other man, Terry 
O’Farrer’s best friend — Dudley Farrance. I 
think Dudley Farrance is the nicest man I’ve 
ever met. He’s so clean, and so absolutely a 
gentleman. I can’t imagine how Gustav came 
in contact with two men like these two boys. 
They’re dears! It wouldn’t be the least bit dif¬ 
ficult to be fond of Terry, and more than fond 
of Dudley Farrance. . . . 

Binny put a cool hand against a hot cheek. 
Her eyes warmed to something at once wist¬ 
ful, puzzled, and tender. She forced herself 
with something of an effort to read on deliber- 


158 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 

ately. The next entry was dated a month 
later. 

Dudley Farrance is in love with me. Or thinks 
he is. As far as I’m concerned, I suppose it’s 
all the same. He comes constantly here, but he’s 
never said anything definite, yet. I suppose I 
oughtn’t to encourage him — but it’s good to have 
a man like that thinking nice things of one. I’m 
so tired of the other sort — however nice! So 
tired . . . 

Terry comes and talks to me for hours about 
Dudley’s sister. Her name’s Irma, and at present 
she’s not in England. But Dudley Farrance says 
she has seen my photograph, and when she comes 
back she is going to see me at the theatre — and 
that she wants to meet me! Lord! But it would 
be good to meet a woman of my own kind again! 
Poor Terry! His prospects appear hopeless. 
He’s poor as a church mouse — and so are the 
Farrances . . . and Irma is a beauty, and a 
matrimonial catch. Poor Terry. 

Gustav is drinking again. . . . I’m afraid 
of him, but I’m getting harder. I defy him some¬ 
times, especially since I’ve found out what he is! 
A crook — a thief — a card cheat! . . . Oh, 
God I And he’s dragged me into it — innocently 
enough — with him. It gives him such a hold on 
me — I couldn’t break away if I tried, not unless 
I want to ruin myself. ... I’d like to be dead, 
sometimes. I hate him — I hate him! It was he 
who stole that necklace — and a good many other 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 159 

trifles! He’s rooked Terry time and again — 
until I’ve tried to warn him! —Terry, I mean. 
It’s awful! ... I don’t know what to do — 

Binny’s eyes widened, her fine nostrils 
dilated for a second, her lips twitched. For 
the next few pages there was nothing of inter¬ 
est. Then: 

I’ve met Van Bevan! The Van Bevan! And 

— I suppose it’s due to Dudley Farrance’s influ¬ 
ence— he’s interested. There’s just the possi¬ 
bility of getting a contract when I finish at 
Scarlossi’s! 

I’ve got it! ... Or nearly. Gustav says 
it’s as good as a certainty, if I can only look 
affluent enough! Affluent! . . . when all my 
rings even are paste, and Van Bevan has an eye 
like a Hatton Garden expert where jewels are 
concerned! 

Oh! Ye gods of luck! I was telling that — 
about the jewels — to Dudley Farrance! And 
he’s going to lend me some, heirlooms, worth a 
perfect pile of money. Enough to make his family 
rich again, though they dare not sell them. He’s 
no right to do it, and it mustn’t be known, but 
he’s going to lend them to me — just to wear when 
I have my interview with Van Bevan — Gustav 
and I are going to supper with him — Van Bevan 

— after the show is over at Scarlossi’s — the night 
before the closing night. 


160 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


They’ve come. They are wonderful ... I 
look like a princess in them! 

Van Bevan was suitably impressed. I’m to go 
after the show to-morrow night to Delorme’s to 
sign the contract! It’s the chance of a lifetime! 
I’ve told Dudley I’ll bring the case of jewels to 
him at the same time — he’ll be there at 
Delorme’s. He’s sending his car for me to the 
theatre. . . . I’m happy to-night! 

A horrible thing has happened. Gustav has 
Dudley Farrance’s jewels. He said just to take 
care of them, but I’m afraid — afraid — afraid! 
Especially after this morning’s news. A Lady 
Heilan, an immensely rich woman, has been 
robbed. It’s made a sensation. And the other 
night I heard Gustav whispering to the funny 
little man I took the first necklace to — he comes 
here sometimes with Gustav, though I hate him! 
They were alone that night. And I’d a headache. 
I went to bed and left them talking. But I came 
out for some milk, in my slippers, and I heard 
what they said, though they didn’t know. It was 
something about an “easy crib” — a “magnificent 
haul,” and then “her ladyship” and “Heilan 
House.” . . . 

It must be the same. I feel half crazy! But 
I’m crazier at the thought of Farrance’s jewels. 
Gustav will have to give them back. He shall — 
or I’ll fling everything to the devil, in sheer des¬ 
peration, and split — whatever the consequences! 
Dudley’s been so straight and so good! . . . 
The doorbell rang. Binny stood up 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 161 


abruptly. For a minute, with eyes ablaze, 
exultation, triumph, and a new, unshakable 
confidence in herself, she waited. Then she 
went hurriedly to the desk, locked the diary 
in it, and, turning as the door opened, 
advanced, very deliberately, to meet Gustav 
De Mille. 


XVII 


De Mille came in quickly. He was obviously 
nervous, white-lipped, furtive of eye, un¬ 
healthily pallid. And, aware of these things, 
a demon of daring entered into Binny Clay. 
She faced him, chin up, brows slightly raised, 
and frowning. Without preamble she took 
the war into the enemy’s camp. 

“See here, Gustav,” she said, “there’s got 
to be an end of this sort of thing — right 
away. From now on you and I separate — 
that is, as far as our mode of living is con¬ 
cerned! I’m through! Through — don’t in¬ 
terrupt, please — with the kind of existence 
that has been ours up to now. I’m — going 
to work. I’ve got to work — if I’m going to 
get there in Van Bevan’s show to stay! And, 
I give you my word, I’m going to stay! ” 

The man licked pale lips that were curiously 
dry. His eyes were fixed upon her in wonder, 
question, fear, and a leering suspicion. She 
met them unwaveringly, grimly determined, 
the words — those last pitiful words of Lola’s 
diary — still burning in her brain. 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 163 


“But I’m going to work on my own. The 
old order is going to change, with a venge¬ 
ance! If you want to drink and play card? 

— you can do it somewhere else. This is 
my flat. I’m going to pay for it with my 
money — the money I shall earn jolly hard 
in the next few months! I’ve got my chance, 
and I’m going to grab it! The chance to 
shake off all old obligations, the chance to 
make good, the chance to earn a decent liveli¬ 
hood clean off my own bat! And look you 
here, Gustav De Mille, I’ll stand not one 
instant’s interference from you, now or here¬ 
after! You go your way. I’m going mine. 
And don’t you forget it, or, I can assure you, 
you’ll be uncommonly sorry!” 

“Good Gad!” De Mille spluttered, gasped, 
and came a somewhat unsteady step farther 
into the room. “What the devil are you 
talkin’ about? Who do you think you are, 
anyway?” . . 

His tone was truculent. Binny, holding her 
ground, grinned in genuine enjoyment of the 
situation. It savoured spicily of the dramatic 

— even of the melodramatic; and melodrama 
had always been dear to Binny’s heart. Many 
a night she had visualized herself as a perse- 


164 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


cuted heroine surmounting insuperable bar¬ 
riers with an ease little short of miraculous; 
and now, since truth is stranger than fiction, 
she found herself fulfilling those amazing 
dreams. Nevertheless, though pleasurably 
and rather fearfully excited, her level brain 
was cool; those strangely beautiful eyes of 
hers were narrowed calculatingly, and amaz¬ 
ingly unafraid. 

“Who do you think you’re talking to? My 
dear Gustav, if you take my advice, you’ll go 
on the water-wagon for quite an appreciable 
period — you need to! Next thing you know 
you’ll be seeing blue mice, and pink rats, and 
— er — dead bodies! Nice, comfy, cheerful 
things like that. Cut out the brandy and take 
a little more soda; do — or you’ll find your¬ 
self in Queer Street. So!” 

She watched his pallor deepen, thought of 
Lola, and hugged herself, diabolically trium¬ 
phant at the momentary passing horror in his 
eyes. 

“Who,” she demanded, before he could 
speak, “do you think I am? . . Oh, cut 
it out, and get a hold on yourself! I give you 
my word, you need to. I for one am getting 
a bit fed up with this — with everything, in 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 165 


fact. I’m cutting it all out from now on. 
You can do what you jolly well like, but 
please don’t come butting into my affairs — 
and don’t try to get me mixed up in yours, 
’cos I’ll not stand for it. Get me?” 

A sudden savage flare lit De Mille’s red- 
rimmed eyes. “You’re too deep in with me 
already to get out! ” he told her, with a glance 
over his shoulder at the door, and speaking 
in a husky whisper. “You—” 

“Oh, no— I’m not! Don’t make any 
mistake like that, Gustav. I can get out, all 
right, any time I’ve a mind to. But when the 
necessity arises for me to ‘get out’ — more 
than I’ve done already — don’t forget you 
‘get under.’ And get under for keeps! I know 
too much about you, little man, for your 
health — or your liberty. Now, go home. 
And remember you come here by invitation 
in the future — or not at all!” 

“You — ” De Mille was upon her with a 
sudden quick movement, but in a flash she 
side-stepped. 

Her own face was white, but she smiled — 
a cool, clear, rather cruel little smile. “You’re 
not in a fit state for conversation!” she told 
him. “Go home. Go home! M w l#J And 


166 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


don’t come here again unless I ask you to. 
I tell you, I’m striking out fresh. You aren’t 
going to stop me — because you can’t! You 
may think you can, but you can’t! First, 
because I’ve got the whip-hand. Second, 
because I’ll use it, if you make me, without 
carin’ a tuppenny-ha’penny cuss as to the 
consequences to myself! D’you get that?” 

“By God! . . .” 

“Don’t blaspheme, Gustav!” Binny’s voice 
was mocking, though her eyes were deadly 
cold. “Call upon the Devil, if you will — 
but go home and think of him, for the good 
of your soul! That’s all I wanted to say to 
you — and it will be just as well for — er — 
your own peace of mind if you remember it! ” 
She moved to the door, opened it, and stood 
aside. “Don’t argue,” she adjured him. 
“Sally’s in the kitchen, and you’re not in a 
state to be cautious. But remember I’ve as 
many good cards in my hand as you have, 
and don’t forget that every time you see me, 
you’re — er — likely to dream nasty dreams 
of — shall we say ghosts — and — maybe — 
the gallows? Good-night! ” 

She watched the dark blood die from his 
face, leaving him deadly white once more. 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 167 


Watched him steadily, though in every limb 
she was trembling, and sickeningly cold. 

In the kitchen Sally stirred. 

De Mille, momentarily sobered, passed the 
girl slowly. “You” — he checked himself, 
and added under his breath — “By Heaven, 
Lola! You’ll pay for this treatment. You’ll 
pay!” 

Binny smiled with a tranquillity she was 
far from feeling. “When I do,” she assured 
him, “believe me, you’ll pay too — to the 
uttermost farthing!” She laughed suddenly, 
rather harshly. “And don’t forget, you’ve 
been drinking more than ever the last few 
days — you, and that fat little beast you’re 
always bringing here!” The bow was drawn 
at a venture, but she saw by the expression 
of his eyes that it had struck its mark, and 
she followed up her advantage rather breath¬ 
lessly. “Don’t forget, Gustav, that while 
dead men tell no tales — drunken men do!” 

Sally had come out of the kitchen. At 
Binny’s gesture she opened the door, looking 
curiously from one to the other. Without a 
word, but with eyes that made Binny shudder 
as she met them, De Mille passed out. 

As Sally shot the bolt home, Binny began 


168 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


suddenly, hysterically, to laugh. Sally swung 
upon her, avidly questioning, eager for infor¬ 
mation. 

“What’s that?” she inquired, and Binny, 
checking her unseemly mirth, stared at her. 

“That,” she said weakly, and inadequately, 
at last — “that’s — just that!” 


XVIII 


In the quickly passing weeks that ensued, 
Binny gave herself up, body, heart, and soul, 
to work. Deliberately, determinedly, she kept 
her mind fixed upon the possibilities of the 
future. She would not allow it to dwell upon 
that which had been. She soaked it in the 
atmosphere of Lola’s subtle, exotic attraction, 
but her own vivid personality peeped through 
more often than not, especially when in the 
theatre. 

On the stage Binny was in her element. 
On the stage, in the present position that was 
hers, she was intoxicated with delight. The 
acting instinct of her mother had descended 
all to her. She was an actress born, a fact 
which strongly mitigated her lack of training. 
At the first rehearsal, nervous, watchful, she 
was anything but at her best. Nevertheless, 
her indifferent performance was considerably 
more effective than any effort of Lola’s had 
ever been. 

Van Sevan smiled encouragingly at her, 
even while he sighed. It was beginning to 


170 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


occur to him that he had taken a big risk 
in giving this girl the part of a favourite so 
popular as Lottie Carrall, who was not only 
a real artist, but a conscientious and earnest 
worker, remarkably devoid of arrogance or 
vanity. Binny’s performance in Ivo Dallas’s 
rooms had fired him with enthusiasm. Upon 
the cold boards of the unset stage, she was 
by no means so attractive. 

Dallas, haggard, nervy, and unsatisfied, 
commented upon it. “Guess we were all 
drunk the other night!” he remarked som¬ 
brely. 

Kyrle Harkness was with him. He 
shrugged, and smiled, not unkindly, but with 
a shade of impatience. It was a smile that 
suggested, perhaps unconsciously, that Van 
Bevan, for once, had made an error of judg¬ 
ment. Van Bevan saw it, flushed, and stif¬ 
fened his thick shoulders. He was nettled, 
irritated. He liked Harkness well enough, but 
he objected to criticism. 

“For the Lord’s sake, give the girl a 
chance!” he growled. “Her worst attempt 
to-day has been better than her best so far! 
She seems scared.” 

“Scared!” Dallas lifted his brows. He 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 171 


had known Lola Arnaut in varying moods, 
but he had never known her scared. 

“That’s what I said!” Van Bevan snapped 
the information. “I don’t know why she 
should be, any more than you do, unless it 
is that she’s beginning to realize that she’s got 
to make good if she’s going to get anywhere 
— or even stay put! Anyway, she’s got 
something in her — a darn sight more, my 
boy, than either you or I suspected.” 

Harkness looked at him quizzically. 
“You’re very hopeful, Mr. Van Bevan. I 
sincerely trust your judgment has been as 
excellent as always. I confess —” He 
paused. 

Van Bevan positively snarled. “It has!” 
he retorted, with a confidence that he did not 
altogether feel. His eyes dwelt on Binny, 
poised now foj a dance. Dallas was speaking 
to her curtly, with difficulty suppressing his 
disappointment. She was listening, her bril¬ 
liant eyes directly fixed upon his. It was as 
if she sensed that she had not acquitted her¬ 
self as well as had been expected. A little 
colour rose in her cheeks, but her gaze re¬ 
mained undaunted. If there was disturbance 
in her soul, she did not show it. She knew 


172 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


her limitations as well as her possibilities. 
Moreover, she was forcing herself to remem¬ 
ber she was playing as Lola Arnaut, not as 
Binny Clay. It made a difference. Later* 
when the surprise at the change in her had 
passed, she could let herself go, be herself. 
Just now there was still need of caution, lest 
she rouse suspicions she would be unable to 
subdue. 

“It’s all right, Mr. Dallas,” she said quietly. 
“I’m feeling a bit strange, that’s all — I’ll 
have the hang of things better after I’ve gone 
through with the dances.” 

She was as good as her word. Van Bevan 
relaxed; Dallas breathed again. Kyrle 
Harkness raised his brows and regarded her 
with new interest. At the end of that day, 
exhausted, excited, and more than ever awed 
by the immensity of the task she had set 
herself, Binny knew satisfaction, a modest 
triumph. 

Thereafter she forgot to be nervous; forgot 
very often that she was playing a part at all, 
and acted as she would have acted had this 
chance come to her direct, instead of through 
a dead woman. As her new surroundings 
became familiar to her, she knew a greater 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 173 


ease, a greater self-assurance. In the theatre, 
and at home, she worked, indefatigably, exer¬ 
cising rigorously every supple, rippling muscle 
of her slim body, posing, pirouetting, seem¬ 
ingly unwearying. 

By the time the opening performance was 
due, she was satisfied with her progress, if 
pardonably anxious. She was really inter¬ 
ested, really happy, and thoroughly absorbed. 
From all sides she received encouragement. 
Van Bevan was cautious, if kindly, in his 
praise, Dallas unwilling. Dudley Farrance 
and Terry were frankly enthusiastic. 

Irma Farrance had not seen her in the 
theatre. But after some slight hesitation she 
had called one day at Binny’s flat. During 
her stay her brother had drifted in, and 
Terry. The latter Irma saw in a new guise — 
lounging at the piano, his long legs very much 
in the way, his big, brown hands drawing forth 
Ivo Dallas’s charming melodies with the skill 
of increasing practice, smoking many ciga¬ 
rettes, and encouraging his hostess with praise 
that was genuine if flowery. 

It came about that Irma was a visitor a 
second time, and a third, and then as often 
almost as her brother himself. She found 


174 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


Binny quaint, unlike any woman of her own 
world, and really fascinating. The two girls 
liked each other with that undemonstrative, 
smooth, and controlled liking that one occa¬ 
sionally, if rarely, finds existing between two 
women. Each was interested in the other; 
more, each was interested in the other’s love 
story. If Irma wondered occasionally, and 
with slight misgiving, how deep Binny’s affec¬ 
tion for Farrance might be, Binny had no 
doubt as to the strength of the tie that existed 
between Irma and Terry. Being of romantic 
temperament, she was wholly in sympathy 
with them both; rather more absorbed in their 
troubles, indeed, than in the situation created 
by Farrance’s avowed affection for herself. 

Concerning the latter she was unsure of her 
own feeling. He had the power to disturb 
her; often, feeling his eyes upon her, the 
rich colour would come and go in her cheeks; 
she would be conscious of a fluttering of her 
pulses, a stirring of her heart. Certainly she 
liked him, liked him as she had never liked 
any one in her life; not as she liked Terry, or 
Irma, or any of the new friends who were 
springing up around her, but differently, with 
greater depth. 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 175 


That liking had grown since the day Far- 
rance had shocked and startled her by declar¬ 
ing his love for her. It was increased by the 
fact that, while he showed, in every glance, 
every trivial attention, that he was entirely 
of the same mind still — while sometimes 
there was a passion of longing in his gaze 
that made her catch her breath and set her 
heart beating over-quickly, he had never once 
since voiced the desire in his soul. Rather 
wonderfully, she thought, he had continued 
her very good friend, troubling her with no 
whisper of love-making, respecting, tenderly, 
if somewhat wistfully, her plea that, at any 
rate for the present, until she was assured of 
real success, and a lasting place in her profes¬ 
sion, they should remain just the friends they 
had always been. 

She had gained a respite by begging that 
she might think, for the time, only of her 
work, might try sincerely to “make good.” 
And, under the circumstances, Farrance had 
behaved in a manner which warmed her heart 
towards him, kept him more frequently in her 
thoughts than perhaps would otherwise have 
been the case. 

For Binny was fired by an eagerness of 


176 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 

ambition, a grim and passionate determina¬ 
tion to justify the praise her friends offered 
and the belief Van Bevan had shown in her, 
which was rapidly consuming her. Knowing 
much of the sordidness of the stage, the love 
of it was stronger in her blood than even she 
had guessed until now. Within a week nervous¬ 
ness had vanished, to return unexpectedly and 
overwhelmingly the night before the opening 
performance. During the day there had been 
so many calls upon her that she had had but 
little time for thought. Rather reluctantly she 
had consented to Farrance’s earnest pleading 
to be allowed to take her, alone, to supper. 
She needed the meal, and enjoyed it, but 
her eyes were over-bright, her cheeks over¬ 
flushed; she was restless, fidgety, and ill at 
ease. 

She rose as soon as they had taken their 
coffee. “I’m dead tired!” she pleaded, meet¬ 
ing his look of disappointment, and with a 
quick murmur of understanding he put her 
cloak about her. He was driving her back 
to her flat in his own car, and as they stepped 
out into the night the chauffeur jumped down 
and opened the door for them, touching his 
cap, glancing at her woodenly. 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 177 


It chanced that she met his eyes. And, 
unexpectedly, the action utterly uncontrolled, 
she caught up her hands to her face, covering 
her own. A little cry, hastily checked, broke 
from her lips — almost, for a moment, it was 
as if she recoiled. 

When she had driven with Farrance in his 
own car of late, it had been in the daytime, 
and with himself at the wheel. Until now, 
in the stress of the passing days, she had 
almost forgotten that it had been Farrance’s 
car in which Lola had been riding that fateful 
night — Farrance’s own chauffeur who had 
ordered her off the footboard of this very car. 
To-night she recognized him instantly, and 
it was too much for her overwrought nerves. 
As Farrance, bewildered and concerned, put 
her into the car, she began to shiver. Then, 
as the servant, after a blank stare of respect¬ 
ful wonderment, climbed into his seat, she let 
her hands fall with a shuddering sob. 


XIX 


“Lola!” As the car slid forward, Farrance 
caught swiftly at the girl’s trembling hands. 
His eyes were troubled, startled. “Lola — 
what is it?” 

At his warm touch Binny’s nerves grew 
steady again. Already she was recovering 
from her momentary shock of recollection. 
Thankfully she was realizing that Farrance 
could not possibly connect her strange behav¬ 
iour with her encounter with the chauffeur. 
Also, thankfully, she was remembering that 
recognition could not possibly have been 
mutual. The man, like the rest of the world, 
knew her as Lola. Like the rest of the world, 
he accepted her as Lola. Furious with her¬ 
self for her weakness, she looked at Farrance 
from beneath lashes that were wet. 

“I’m so sorry!” She freed her hands and 
rubbed the back of one quickly across her 
eyes. “I — I don’t even know what startled 
me. I’ve been all on the jump to-day. Every¬ 
body has, as a matter of fact, and my nerves 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 179 


are frayed to shreds. I’m awfully silly! 

“You’re awfully plucky!” 

A little glow of warmth ran through her at 
the tone; she smiled, tremulously, gratefully. 
Again she was conscious of his steadying 
influence. She braced herself anew, and at 
the wavering sweetness of her eyes the man’s 
throat contracted. 

“Oh, Lola!” he whispered. “Lola! My 
dear ...” He stopped short as she drew 
back, and into his eyes there crept a sudden 
look of pain. 

The girl saw it, and made a sharp gesture. 
“Please!” she begged hastily, as though desir¬ 
ous of checking whatever he might be about 
to say, and Farrance sighed. 

“I wonder,” he said wistfully, “how much 
longer you’re going to keep me at arm’s length, 
Lola. I’ve been pretty patient, haven’t I?” 

“You’ve been an absolute dear!” Binny 
made the assurance generously, earnestly, and 
with something in her expression of which she 
was not aware, but which made the man bend 
quickly nearer to her. But she shook her head, 
drawing back. She said, with a slight shake 
in her voice: “It’s your friendship I’m needing 
just now. The comfort of knowing you’re 


180 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


there, ready to help and to encourage — as 
you’ve always done. Friendship, and your 
faith in me. It’s meant a lot to me, Dudley, 
being sure of those two things. It’s going to 
mean more for these next few hours. After¬ 
wards ...” She broke off, catching her 
lip between her teeth. 

Farrance’s hand lay upon hers. At its touch 
her colour rose, the pulse began to beat in her 
throat. For a long moment the man looked 
steadily into her eyes. Then the car stopped 
and he took away his hand. He went with 
her as far as the door of her flat, and stood 
bareheaded while they waited for Sally to 
open the door. 

“I shan’t come in,” he told Binny. “You’re 
overwrought and worn out as it is — you need 
to rest. But” — he lowered his voice and 
lifted the hand she had given him for a 
moment against his breast — “I’m not going 
to forget ‘afterwards,’ Lola!” 

Binny’s lips parted in protest, and shut 
again as Sally opened the door. She did not 
answer, even when he released her fingers; 
but over her shoulder she gave him a smile, 
fearful, fleeting, provocative — and holding 
a subtle, wistful promise that set the blood 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 181 


coursing hotly through his veins, and sent him 
on his homeward way a happier man than he 
had been for many days. 

As for Binny, while Farrance’s image lin¬ 
gered with her, comforting, friendly, -she 
relaxed immediately she heard Sally’s voice 
scolding kindly in her ears, and dropped into 
the chair the woman pushed forward for her. 

“Dead beat, I’ll bet!” the latter observed. 
“And no more sense than to go out to supper 
after a hard day’s work, with a worse day 
ahead of you! Lord, you folks! . . . There, 
don’t talk, and drink that soup. I don’t care 
if you’ve had half a dozen dinners, you’re 
goin’ to eat that soup and take these aspirins, 
or I clear clean out here and now and let you 
get along as best you can to-morrow.” Her 
tone was truculent; her hand as kindly as a 
mother’s upon the girl’s shoulder. 

Binny laughed, shaking her tired head. She 
had come to understand Sally remarkably well 
in the last few weeks, and to like her. She ate 
the toast and drank the rich hot soup unwill¬ 
ingly, yet gratefully; then got to her feet. 

“Dead beat’s right, Sally!” she agreed. 
“I’m ready to drop!” She stretched whiter, 
plumper arms than she had hitherto known, 


182 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


above her head, and Sally nodded apprais¬ 
ingly. 

“You’ll break down to-morrow night if you 
don’t look out!” she prophesied with the 
cheerfulness of her class. “Not,” she added 
encouragingly, “that I set much store on you 
making much of a hit. Show young ladies 
don’t last long in decently big parts as a rule 
,. . . and it’s one thing to make a bit of 

a splash to a lot of folks who are friends and 
another to put it over a first-night audience. 
’Specially when you’re taking the place of a 
real favourite.” 

Binny grimaced. “You’re a happy soul, 
Sally!” She let her arms drop and moved 
stiffly to the door. “Get me to bed. We’ll 
see about to-morrow when to-morrow comes.” 
Her face looked suddenly pinched, white, and 
haggard. 

Sally, opening the door, coughed. “Not 
but what,” she conceded, “you’ve been a darn 
sight better’n a good many I’ve seen in re¬ 
hearsals— and amazin’ changed ever since 
Mr. Van Bevan gave you the contract. I’m 
sure I wish you all the luck, anyway.” 

Binny smiled at her; a small, faint, but 
indomitably optimistic smile. Half leaning 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 183 


against the lintel of the door, she answered: 
“Thank you, Sally. I know you do. I’m 
beginning to realize myself that I’ve bitten 
off rather a big hunk. A whole lot more 
depends on me than I guessed would be the 
case. Only I’ve got to do my best, and, as 
you say, ‘put it over,’ if only for the sakes of 
Mr. Van Bevan and Mr. Dallas. It’s going to 
mean a lot to them as well as to me!” 

Sally, a hand on her elbow, eyed her 
shrewdly. “You bet,” she asserted, “that it’s 
goin’ to mean more! You can mess up their 
show quite a bit, dearie, if you fall down on 
it. But you — well, if you’re a failure you’ve 
got the nicest gentleman in London to turn to 
in Mr. Farrance, and no need to look at the 
footlights again!” 

Sally propelled her across the hall and into 
the bedroom, where she undressed her deftly 
and with celerity. Binny submitted, a queer, 
twisted, wry little smile upon her lips. Some¬ 
thing about it made Sally frown as she tucked 
the sheets in firmly. 

“Mr. Farrance,” she pronounced, “is worth 
a deal more than all the popularity you'll 
get, any day of the week. And don’t you 
forget it!” 


184 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


Between Binny’s vision and the ceiling 
there rose anew the image of the man who 
had befriended her. Her throat contracted 
suddenly. She met Sally’s eyes quietly. “I 
shan’t!” she said soberly. “Oh — I shan’t!” 

But long after Sally had gone, she lay with 
clenched hands, staring into the firelit gloom, 
her face set, her eyes strained. Above all 
things at that moment she wanted to make 
good — wanted to justify the faith that three 
men had shown in her — wanted, achingly, 
eagerly, passionately, to know that she was 
something, somebody, worthy of the applause 
for which she yearned. 

All her starved life she had prayed for a 
bare chance to gain some sort of footing. The 
fire of her mother’s blood was in her veins; she 
wanted to be — if only for a little while — 
more than a nonentity, one of the great crowd 
of human beings who were mere lookers-on. 
She wanted to do, and to do well. And, 
strengthening that desire, she knew there was 
the greater desire to justify, absolutely and 
completely, Dudley Farrance’s faith in her. 


XX 


Whatever nervousness Binny endured 
throughout the next seemingly interminable 
day was not noticeable in her manner. And 
when the time came for her to go upon the 
stage, it had slipped from her like a cloak. 
To those who watched her, her calm, her abso¬ 
lute serenity, was amazing, even irritating. 
She permitted Sally to dress her quite 
placidly; she smiled upon Dallas with a cheer¬ 
fulness that made him want to shake her; 
she laughed at Van Bevan’s pleadings that 
she should do her best. 

“There’s a pile of money in this thing,” he 
assured her. “And most of the work, when 
we come to think of it, rests with you! The 
show’ll be a dead frost if you’re not equal to 
carrying it through — and I’ll be the laugh 
of London! I, Van Bevan, who have never 
dished up a failure yet, or failed to pick a 
winner. I wish to the Lord I’d never been 
such a dog-goned fool as to give you the part! 
There, there, m’dear! No offence — only — 
only — ” He stopped, at a loss for words. 

Binny continued to smile, absently, serenely. 


186 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


Her eyes were wide, over-bright, her lips trem¬ 
ulous with eagerness. Once, as she passed 
into the wings, a shudder shook her. Van 
Bevan saw, and groaned. Dallas saw, and 
thrust his fingers wildly through his hair. 
But it was a shudder of excitement, not of 
nervousness. 

Her chance had come: the chance of a life¬ 
time. The chance to be famous, the chance 
to fight and coax and force her way into the 
curious heart of the great public. She must 
do it to-night, or not at all. 

With the glare of the footlights in her eyes, 
she drew a long breath. She was aware of 
the fact that, somewhere, Far ranee was watch¬ 
ing her, eagerly, Van Bevan agonizedly. But 
she saw neither of them. She saw nothing 
but a haze of light — a sea of faces. She 
knew nothing but that she was in the lime¬ 
light — full in the limelight — and that the 
success of the great Van Bevan’s biggest pro¬ 
duction depended upon her. She heard 
nothing but the seductive, lilting sweetness 
of the opening bars of the first song that 
Dallas had written for her. And, after one 
tense, tremulous moment of hesitation, she 
began to sing. 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 187 


Singing, she was swept off her feet, away 
from realities. With the ending of the song 
and the beginning of her dance, she was trans¬ 
figured. She had forgotten the audience, 
everything. She swayed to the music, breath¬ 
ing it, every lilting movement of her supple 
body expressing the meaning that uallas had 
put into the composition. 

The curtain shut her away to a storm of 
applause. In the wings Van Bevan seized 
upon her, perspiring profusely. 

“Great!” he gurgled. “Great! If you can 
keep it up! If only you can keep it up!” 

Binny passed him smiling. She was in a 
dream, a wonderful, bewildering dream. It 
was not until the fall of the last curtain that 
she awoke. Van Bevan was pumping her 
hands up and down, looking so apoplectic that 
she thought he would collapse then and there. 

“B’gosh! But you’ve made the show! 
Listen to ’em! Listen! Lord, girl, don’t 
stand here gaping at me! Go on! Take 
your call! Now who says Van Bevan don’t 
know a winner when he sees one? Go on, 
I tell you!” 

When at last the uproar had subsided, 
Binny found Farrance at her side, the touch 


188 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


of his hands on hers. With the passionate 
admiration and commendation of his eyes the 
first knowledge of success was borne in upon 
her. The auditorium was silent, the theatre 
rapidly emptying. Only the hum of voices 
immediately about her was real. 

She gasped, and caught suddenly at Far- 
rance’s arm. From somewhere behind him, 
at a lumbering run, Terry appeared. His 
freckled face was aglow, his eyes ashine. 

“Oh, you!” he hailed her. “Oh, you kid! 
Sure, and wasn’t it meself that said you’d 
be famous this night? I did so! And so 
you are, begorrah! And so you are!” 

Binny, blinking anew, laughed rather trem¬ 
ulously. An instant later she stiffened. In 
the background, watching her closely, sar¬ 
donic, unsmiling, was Gustav De Mille. And 
for an instant she was conscious of a sensa¬ 
tion of having plunged into cold water. 

He met her eyes, and bowed. “A wonderful 
success, Lola!” he remarked, without coming 
towards her. “Let us hope — that it will 
last!” 

Binny’s eyes narrowed, her face paled. 
Then her head went up. Deliberately, softly, 
mockingly, she laughed in his face. 


XXI 


Success! Binny went to bed that night with 
the word ringing in her ears, drunk with the 
knowledge that it was hers, drowned in the 
wonder of it, amazed, and breathlessly thank¬ 
ful. She had made good. She had “put it 
over.” She had kept her promise to Van 
Bevan. She had, by token of his assurance, 
apart from that of the thunderous applause 
of a somewhat critical house, made the show. 
She had got, in one soaring flight, where she 
had yearned to be for long, drab, weary years. 
She had borne Lola Arnaut’s name, but deep 
within her she knew that her audience had 
paid homage, as one man, to the vivid per¬ 
sonality of herself, to her own talent, not to 
the stellar importance of her name. Applause, 
to-night, and personal congratulations had 
been for her — for her, Binny Clay — and for 
her alone. She knew it, and exulted in it. 

In childhood, with chilled toes peeping 
through pitifully patched shoes, dancing to 
the monotonous melody of barrel-organs, she 
had dreamed of this hour; in young, half- 


190 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


starved girlhood, facing the footlights in 
gaudy, tawdry finery, a “fairy” in some 
fourth-rate pantomime, she had hugged that 
dream for warmth to her meagre breast. With 
budding womanhood it had gone with her, 
keeping hope alive, making existence possible. 
It had, all-compelling, driven her to her out¬ 
rageous course of action. It had steadied 
her in her determination to win to her goal, 
to keep firm her grasp upon the skirts of an 
opportunity which had been wafted to her 
reach in a manner little short of miraculous. 

Her triumph was fully justified in the weeks 
that followed. Successful night followed suc¬ 
cessful night. Dallas, paler than ever, but 
with a growing content beneath the restless 
flame of his eyes, wrote new songs, new dance 
music. Van Bevan rubbed his hands, smiled 
more than ever benignly, and nightly surveyed 
the crowded house with increasing satisfac¬ 
tion. Sally clucked like an excited hen, and 
declared daily, with a brazen lack of truth, 
that she “had known Miss Lola had it in her 
all the time.” An inaccuracy which Binny 
let pass without comment. 

Terry was violently but genuinely jubilant. 
Nevertheless, as the days slipped by, Binny 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 191 

began to notice a marked change in him. He 
looked harassed; his usually irrepressible 
gaiety of spirits and manner gradually left 
him. He grew taciturn, seemed to fall into 
a brooding, unhappy mood even when in the 
joiliest company. Binny noticed, but made no 
comment. Nevertheless, she was disturbed 
and regretful. She liked Terry, and she liked 
Irma, very much. By now she was, thanks 
to that strange, subtle quality of sympathetic 
understanding which was hers, considerably in 
the confidence of both. She watched them, 
noting that Irma was increasingly unhappy, 
ungirlishly sober; that while there was a pas¬ 
sionate intensity in their handclasp when they 
met in her presence, they seldom said very 
much to each other. 

It troubled her. She attacked Terry upon 
the subject, characteristically and unex¬ 
pectedly, one day after the three had spent 
the afternoon together, and Irma had de¬ 
parted somewhat hastily to dress for a dinner 
preceding a theatre engagement. Terry had 
put her into her car, but had not suggested 
accompanying her. He mooned back into 
Binny’s presence, and she regarded him for 
a moment or two in silence. 


192 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


“Anything in particular wrong with you 
lately, Terry?” she demanded. “You’ve been 
like a bear with a sore head for weeks now — 
almost ever since the show opened. Not a 
bit like yourself . . . And as for Irma! 

She threw up her hands. “She’s a 
bundle of nerves, and looks as if she hadn’t 
had a decent square meal for days. You 
haven’t quarrelled?” 

Shrewd yet kindly eyes searched his, and 
beneath them he halted in his restless pacing, 
thrusting his hands deep into his pockets. 

“Quarrelled! ” The word was an explosion. 
He stood glowering at her resentfully, and 
she made a little grimace. 

“Sorry! But you’re so — queer — both of 
you. And I don’t like to see it!” She hesi¬ 
tated, regarding him from under gold-tipped 
lashes; then: “I don’t want to seem to 
interfere — to butt into your affairs and — 
and Irma’s — unwarrantably. Only — you’ve 
both been so decent to me — such pals. And 
I hate to see either of you miserable.” Her 
voice lifted wistfully. 

The note of it lured Terry to instant con¬ 
trition, impulsive appreciation of her sym¬ 
pathy. He reached for her hand. “Sure, and 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 193 


you’re the dearest kid!” His big fingers 
gripped hers hard. “The real, right sort of 
pal for any chap to have! It’s meself and 
Irma are agreed there. Irma likes you as 
much as I do, Lola; and I’m glad of it. She 
hasn’t many folks about her she’s fond of, 
or whom she can call friends!” He spoke 
bitterly. 

Binny looked at him, and nodded. The 
answering pressure of her fingers was warmly 
sympathetic, and his face softened. 

“As for interfering! . . . Oh, Lord! 
Lola! Surely you know better than that?” 

Binny laughed, swift sweetness in her eyes. 
“Then — what’s all the trouble?” 

Terry loosed her hand and walked away 
to the window. 

After a moment she got up and followed 
him. “Benjamin Clay again?” 

He wheeled at that, his mouth grim. He 
answered directly, almost savagely. “Yes! 
Benjamin Clay again! Damn him!” There 
was an expression in his eyes that half fright¬ 
ened her. He turned a thumb down upon 
the polished table between them. “He’s got 
me there, Lola! I’m powerless. I told 
you before I couldn’t meet my debts. It’s 


194 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


worse now. He’s squeezing me harder than 
ever, bringing more and more pressure to 
bear. I . , . I guess things are pretty 
desperate!” 

Binny’s eyes hardened, narrowed, grew 
alert, questioning. “Desperate?” Her tone 
was sharp. 

Terry’s white face was queerly set as he 
replied: “Quite desperate. I tell you, I’m 
done. Clay can break me — ruin me. I 
don’t stand a dog’s chance!” 

Binny’s face was altogether sober now; and 
she ran swift fingers through her hair, frown¬ 
ing up at him in troubled perplexity. 

“I don’t think,” she told him, “that I quite 
understand, even now. You owe this man 
Clay money, a lot of money — and you can’t 
pay him? That right?” 

Terry nodded grimly. “That’s right. He’s 
lent me money, from time to time, at interest. 
The interest is a fortune in itself. Like the 
rest of his kind, he’s a thieving rogue . . . 
but one doesn’t realize that until one’s in up 
to the neck. I can’t find the money that I 
owe him — and I can’t find the interest! 
I’m —in the parlance of the day — dead 
broke.” 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 195 


“But what’s going to happen?” 

He flung out his hands. “Ruin. Just that, 
plain and simple. I didn’t stand much of a 
chance with Irma, anyhow, before. Perhaps 
you’ve learned a little of the situation as far 
as she’s concerned — or deduced it. Her 
people always were dead against me. Not 
that I can exactly blame them for that. Only 
... Oh, it’s damnable! I’ve been a fool, 
and worse. But, begorrah, I’m going to pay 
for it, I’m thinking! I’m in a hole that no 
one can pull me out of!” His voice ceased 
suddenly. 

Binny shivered. Here was tragedy, stark, 
unexpected, sensed by herself rather than 
expressed in Terry’s words. Terry was “up 
against it.” He had used the word “ruin,” 
and had, she knew, not exaggerated. She put 
her hand out and touched his arm. Her eyes 
were wide with distress. 

“Oh!” she whispered. “Oh! But I’m 
sorry, sorry. Isn’t there anything . . . 
can’t anybody do anything?” 

Terry shook his head. He did not speak.' 

Presently she let her hand fall, and said: 
“But — Irma? Does she know?” 

The look that came into the boy’s face 


196 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


then hurt her physically. She felt suddenly 
that she wanted to cry. 

“She’ll know to-night,” he said slowly, 
draggingly. “She’ll have to know to-night. 
We can’t go on like this. And in a little 
while — Lord knows how soon! — I may be, 
shall be, down and out — or worse!” 

“Don’t!” Binny flashed upon him, then 
flung out her hand again. “Look here, I’ve 
got some money. Quite a bit. Van Bevan’s 
increased my screw — he’s been a real old 
sport like that — and I’ve more than I want. 
Lots more. Won’t you borrow it? Even if 
it’s not enough, it may keep that wretched 
Clay man quiet — give you a chance to think 
of what to do. Oh, Terry! If we’re really 
pals — you and I and Irma — do!” 

Terry looked at her. Into those strange, 
warm, melting Irish eyes of his there came 
an expression that brought a lump to her 
throat. He took her hands, but even as he 
did so, he shook his head. 

“No!” He added, at her hurt exclamation: 
“I would, like a shot — and love you for it, 
kid! Only you don’t understand. It’s too 
late to offer Clay any kind of sop. He’s got 
the pull on me every way. I’m done!” 


XXII 


Terry said the same, in substance, to Irma 
Farrance that same night; said it briefly, and 
in his despair, brutally, softening the stark 
truth not at all. But at that which lay in 
his eyes the bitter cry of pain and protest 
that rose to her lips died unuttered. She just 
stood staring at him, wide-eyed, motionless, 
her fingers gripped tightly about the stem 
of the great geranium-red feather she held, 
her small face quite expressionless. 

The play to which she had been was over; 
she had come, with her mother and Kyrle 
Harkness, to the house of a mutual friend 
where there was to be an informal dance. 
Terry had known where to find her, and now, 
momentarily alone, they stood facing each 
other in a silence which to both seemed suffo¬ 
cating. Quite near to them was the sound 
of laughter, of music; but neither of them 
heard. 

It was Irma who broke the silence at last. 
“Terry! When you speak of ruin — when 
you say that everything must be -it an end 


198 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


— what do you mean? Oh, what do you 
mean?” 

There was a rising note of terror in her 
voice; instinctively she threw out a hand to 
him, but Terry did not touch her. 

“Just that.” His voice rang harsh, hope¬ 
less, and the girl shivered. “I’m ruined; and 
it’s the end. The end between us; the end 
of everything, as far as I’m concerned!” 

“The end between us . . . Terry! It 
mustn’t be! It shan’t be!” Her hands were 
upon his arm now, clinging, trembling hands 
that gripped with a steely strength of which 
he had never suspected them. Her eyes im¬ 
plored, her lips were unsteady. 

He looked away from her, the suffering in 
his face deepening. “It must be! What else? 
God knows, I’ve been a fool ever to hope that 
there might be anything lasting in our friend¬ 
ship— in our love. I had little enough to 
offer, in the beginning. I’ve less now! I’m 
not only penniless; I’m up to my eyes in debt. 
For all I know — and, by the saints, I’m as 
poor a business man as my father before me! 

— it may mean prison. It must mean dis¬ 
grace. Certainly it means ruin. Ruin, abso¬ 
lute and complete!” He took her hands 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 199 


gently but determinedly away from his arm. 
“Now” — he demanded, bleakly, wretchedly 
— “do you understand?” 

The bright feather slid from Irma’s fingers 
and lay, unheeded, at her feet. She 
looked piteously small and fragile — so 
small, so fragile that Terry made a swift 
movement towards her. He checked it an 
instant later as a laughing couple of dancers 
hesitated at the entrance of the little room. 
Then, as if he found the sight of her, the 
appeal of the great dark eyes, of the wan, 
scared face, too much for him, he swung 
abruptly on his heel, and, brushing swiftly 
past the two chatterers at the entrance, went 
across the hall, and, presently, through the 
big doors into the night. 

The dancers changed their minds and 
passed on. A fresh gust of laughter came 
from some distant room. The sound of the 
music was very distinct now. But Irma did 
not move. Her hands hanging limply at her 
sides, the bright feather glowing at her feet, 
she stood looking straight before her. She 
did not hear the sound of a step. She did not 
know that she was no longer alone until 
some one touched her lightly on the arm. 


200 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


Then, with a shuddering little gasp, she 
turned, to meet Kyrle Harkness’s eyes. They 
were grave, kindly, even troubled, and for 
a moment she looked into them rather 
dazedly. 

As she made a swift, nervous gesture, he 
stooped, retrieving the feather, and laid it 
gently back in her hands. 

“Miss Farrance,” he said quietly, “I am 
sorry, but I have been eavesdropping.” He 
saw the startled light that leaped to her eyes, 
and made a slight gesture. “I had no inten¬ 
tion of doing so, needless to say. I was out 
there, on the balcony, beyond those plants. 
Young O’Farrer had already said a good deal 
before I quite realized how private a conver¬ 
sation it was between you. Again — I am 
sorry.” 

Irma opened her lips, and closed them 
again. She did not know what to say. There 
was something about the directness of the 
man that she could not help admiring; but 
she was frightened. He saw it, and lifted his 
hand. 

“Needless to say,” he assured her quietly, 
“I shall forget what I heard. Nevertheless 
— ” He paused. 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 201 


Irma, with an inarticulate murmur, had 
made a movement towards the entrance. In 
a stride he reached it before her; drew to, 
swiftly, the door concealed behind the velvet 
curtains. As she halted, he faced her, brows 
bent, his eyes dwelling still gravely upon her. 

“I want to speak to you,” he said gently. 
“There is something I have to say to you 
which will, at any rate, interest you, if nothing 
more.” 

Again she opened her lips; again closed 
them. 

Harkness went on. “First, as I have 
already told you, I overheard practically the 
whole of young O’Farrer’s conversation with 
you. It is as plain to me as it is to you that 
he is in very serious difficulties, that, to use 
his own words, he is up against ruin. It is 
plain to me, too, that you are very deeply 
distressed — that you would do a very great 
deal to help him; to get him out of his diffi¬ 
culties, to free him from — er — shall we say 
the clutches? — of this money-lender, Ben¬ 
jamin Clay. That is right, isn’t it?” 

The colour was back in Irma’s cheek now; 
there was a growing, resentful sparkle in her 
eyes. 


202 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


Harkness lifted his hand. “I don’t want 
you to get angry. And I don’t want you to 
think that I am speaking out of mere imper¬ 
tinent curiosity. It is in my power to help 
Terry O’Farrer, quite considerably.” 

He heard her caught breath, saw the bright 
rose die out of her face, leaving her white, 
watched her eyes widen and grow eager. He 
went on: 

“I know Benjamin Clay — fairly well. I 
have influence with him. Considerable influ¬ 
ence. I am quite confident that, if I say the 
word, he will waive all claim to that extortion¬ 
ate interest upon his loans to O’Farrer of 
which the latter complains; will be perfectly 
agreeable to await repayment of those loans 
at O’Farrer’s convenience, and that he will at 
no future time take unwarrantable advantage 
of his power over O’Farrer.” 

There was a short silence. Irma was look¬ 
ing at him blankly, as though powerless to 
comprehend his meaning. 

He waited a moment; then: “You do under¬ 
stand, don’t you?” Harkness asked. “If I — 
have a little talk with Ben Clay, it will put 
matters completely straight for our young 
friend. He will hear from Mr. Clay to that 
effect as early as to-morrow morning.” 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 203 


“But — but” — Irma spoke with a faint 
stammer — “Terry wouldn’t — wouldn’t be 
willing — I mean — you and he — it is not 
as though you were — were friends . . 

She broke off. 

Harkness smiled; it was not an unpleasant 
smile, yet beneath it the girl’s eyes grew 
apprehensive. Harkness said quietly: “Rather 
— rivals.” And quite involuntarily Irma 
lifted her hand up against her throat. Once 
more the colour surged to her temples, once 
more died. She remained silent, watching 
him, still with the apprehension in her^eyes. 
He went on: “There is no reason whatever 
why Mr. O’Farrer should know anything of 
my part in the change of Clay’s attitude. No 
reason that he should suspect it. The matter 
should rest between just — ourselves.” 

If there was significance in the last word it 
was so slight, so subtle, that very few would 
have noticed. Irma, because of her conscious¬ 
ness of Harkness’s feeling for her, was pain¬ 
fully aware of it. Impulsively she voiced the 
fear and suspicion that were growing in her 
mind. 

“Mr. Harkness, you would not be willing 
to do so much — to go to such lengths for 


204 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


a man who is no more than an acquaintance 
unless — unless you expected something in 
return!” The words were at once an asser¬ 
tion and a question. 

The line of Harkness’s lips grew grim. “No 
man reaches the position I am in by giving 
anything for nothing. Naturally, I should 
expect something in return. I think you know 
what it is.” 

Irma’s hands clenched over the feather, 
crushing it ruthlessly. Her eyes were dilated. 
For a long, tense moment they clung to his, 
searching. Then she let her hands fall apart 
in a movement that was oddly despairing. 

“Yes,” she said, “I know.” 

Harkness bent his head. “That being so,” 
he said, “I shall be glad if you will give me 
your decision at once. You may find it diffi¬ 
cult to believe, but I find the role of ‘villain’ ” 
— he smiled bitterly — “a distinctly unpleas¬ 
ant one. I had hoped to persuade you to do me 
the inestimable honour of becoming my wife 
without bringing pressure to bear. Since that 
proved impossible ...” He paused; then 
added: “I should like to speak to your father 
to-night. Should like to know matters settled 
as far as your family is concerned, even if our 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 20S 


engagement is not immediately announced 
publicly.” 

Irma’s face had grown deadly pale. The 
very quiet and gentleness of his manner left 
her with a sickening sense of helplessness. 
At the back of her brain Terry’s despairing 
words were ringing; before her eyes his face, 
hopeless, haggard, suffering, seemed to rise. 
A passionate yearning to succour him sprang 
to life within her, yet with it was a shuddering 
shrinking from the sacrifice that she must 
make. As from a great distance she heard 
Harkness’s voice: “Are you willing?” he was 
asking, and for a stifling moment she was 
silent, fighting against the revolt within her 
soul, the desire to fling refusal in his face. 
Then, drearily, very low, she answered him. 
“Not willing!” she said, and in her voice was 
sudden scorn. “But I consent.” 

;. . .1 . t*t .1 

That night, restless for some reason, unable 
to sleep, Binny sat cuddled among her pillows, 
the shaded light glowing warmly upon her, 
the white cat purring peacefully at the foot 
of the bed. Upon the thick eiderdown were 
scattered a few papers; those few papers 
which Mrs. Jenkins, of Fulgarth Street, had 


206 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


guarded among her own poor possessions: 
her birth certificate; her mother’s marriage 
certificate. What prompted her to bring them 
forth to-night she did not know. She even 
touched them half reluctantly, yet with a 
certain wistful interest. They reminded her 
poignantly of cruelly hard days, of blows, and 
hunger, and disappointment. 

She laid them before her, just the two cer¬ 
tificates, and a soiled slip of paper bearing 
pencilled instructions for the feeding of an 
infant. A lump rose in Binny’s throat; a little 
bitterness in her heart. Then, her eyes upon 
the certificates, side by side, she sat upright, 
staring. One certified the marriage of Mary 
Munro and Benjamin Clay; the other, the 
registration of the infant daughter of Mary 
and Benjamin Clay. 

Of Mary — and Benjamin Clay! 


XXIII 


“Benjamin Clay! ” Binny, turning the papers 
about in her fingers, whispered the name 
softly to herself, a frown of the deepest per¬ 
plexity creasing her smooth brows. She was 
suddenly alert, her mind working rapidly, her 
gaze intent. Her pulses had begun to flutter 
with a faint excitement. 

Benjamin Clay! Benjamin Clay, the 
money-lender — and Benjamin Clay, the 
father she had never known! Was it possible 
— could it be possible — that there was any 
connection between the two? She lay very 
still, staring straight in front of her, her eyes 
wide, and bright, and more than ever intent. 
The possibility that her father and Benjamin 
Clay, the money-lender, were one and the 
same was surely making the stretch of the 
arm of coincidence a little too long. And yet 

. ... She drew a slow breath, folding the 
papers very carefully, tucking them away 
beneath her pillows. The name Benjamin 
Clay was not quite an ordinary one. The 
money-lender was a somewhat mysterious 
person. According to the late Mrs. Jenkins, 


208 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


her father had been a somewhat mysterious 
person, too. She lay wide awake for a long 
time, wondering, pondering, intrigued; but 
finally fell asleep unsatisfied and as perplexed 
as ever. 

Her days were busy now, strenuous days 
of hard work that she very thoroughly en¬ 
joyed, and into which she put her heart and 
soul. Upon the morrow she found little time 
to think about the coincidence of her father’s 
name being the same as that of Terry 
O’Farrer’s “shark.” When she did remember 
it, she was conscious only of a half-irritated 
bewilderment. Binny was one of those per¬ 
sons who, when working, is absorbed com¬ 
pletely in her work. And Van Bevan and 
Dallas between them kept her going. 

It was not until tea-time that she found 
herself with any leisure at all. And even as 
Sally brought in a well-laden tray to the sit¬ 
ting-room the doorbell rang. Binny reached 
for a powder-puff and sighed. 

“If possible, I’m out!” she whispered, and 
the woman, nodding understanding^, dis¬ 
appeared. But she came back, followed by 
Dudley Farrance, and departed in search of 
a second tea-cup. 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 209 


Farrance, his eyes instantly alight at the 
sight of Binny, came to her quickly, taking 
her hand in a warm clasp. 

“You’re alone?” he demanded, with a quick 
glance round the room, and dropped into a 
chair near her with a sigh of relief. “Thank 
the Lord for that! Do you know, Lola, I 
don’t believe I’ve had one whole minute alone 
with you since the first night of this blessed 
show! I’ve been feeling desperate!” 

Binny looked at him, laughed; and then, for 
no reason, blushed. She sat upright as Sally 
came back with the cup. 

“It has been a sort of a scrum, hasn’t it?” 
she agreed. “All the same, you’re exaggerat¬ 
ing.” She poured him some tea and handed it 
to him. 

Farrance eyed her reproachfully. “Not 
much,” he protested. “I really have been 
feeling horribly out in the cold.” 

There was the least shadow of hurt in his 
eyes, and Binny flushed guiltily. Impulsively 
she stretched a hand across the table to him. 

“I’m sorry! I did not mean to be unkind, 
to seem ungrateful! I—” 

“My dear,” Farrance’s fingers closed firmly 
round the slender ones, and he leaned quickly 


210 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


nearer to her, “it is not gratitude I want — 
or just kindness. I want your heart — your¬ 
self. And . . . Oh, Lola! It seems to me 
Eve been waiting overlong!” There was 
yearning in his voice, but something of stern¬ 
ness in his eyes. 

Binny, meeting them, paled, striving unsuc¬ 
cessfully to free her hand. She was conscious 
of a tremendous change in Farrance. His 
easy-going boyishness had deserted him. He 
was very much a man, deadly in earnest, a 
man who had suddenly come to the end of his 
endurance. 

It was unexpected, startling. The girl real¬ 
ized with the sudden quickening of her pulses 
that a time had come to put an end to dally¬ 
ing. She must face the fact of Farrance’s love 
for her seriously. She must look deep into 
her own heart — very deep — and see, for 
certain, how much was there that she could 
give to him in return. She could hold him off 
no longer. She knew that, knew it by the 
burning hunger of his eyes, the grip of his 
nervous fingers. And while she was in a 
panic at the knowledge, she admitted deep 
down in the heart of which she was so unsure 
that she could not expect otherwise. 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 211 


Farrance had been infinitely patient, a lover 
in no wise exacting. He had been ready to 
give of his help and his understanding, his 
love and his homage, and to wait, uncom¬ 
plaining, for his reward. From the first he 
had shown her an amazing sympathy. He had 
always put her, and her welfare, before his 
own desires. 

She freed her hand at last and sat back, 
leaving her tea untouched. Her eyes looked 
dark, and were faintly troubled. She was face 
to face with issues which she had hoped to 
avoid for some little time yet. She had never 
allowed herself to dwell upon her feeling for 
Dudley Farrance. She knew that she liked 
him; more than liked him. She knew that he 
was the first person to whom she would turn 
should need arise. She knew that she might 
rely upon him in any emergency, that there 
was pleasure in being with him, in knowing 
that he cared for her. Now she found herself 
a trifle breathless. She wondered at the 
warmth of colour in her cheeks, at the ham¬ 
mering of her heart, the beating of her pulses. 
She wondered why it was so difficult to look 
into Farrance’s eyes. 

“I’m sorry! ” she said again, rather stupidly, 


212 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


she felt; and the next moment found herself 
swept, bodily, into his arms. She struggled 
for an instant, then was still, her eyes closing 
as his mouth found hers. She never forgot 
that kiss; nor did Farrance. It broke down 
barriers, made certain that which hitherto had 
been unsure. It brought revelation to them 
both, set them trembling, awed and amazed 
them, and kept them dumb by the very won¬ 
der of its teaching. 

Farrance was stammering when he spoke at 
last. “You love me? Lola, you do love me?” 

That was all. But Binny, lifting a face 
all wet with tears, and two drenched eyes 
that had the light of morning itself aglow 
in their depths, reached her hands up about 
his neck, clinging close. 

“Oh, yes, yes!” she breathed. And added, 
very simply, very sincerely, with a note of 
such wonderful new tenderness in her voice 
that Farrance hid his eyes for a moment 
against the white, pulsing throat: “I love 
you!” 


XXIV 


Ensued an interval of that mysterious, ex¬ 
pressive silence such as only lovers, very new 
to the magic of love, can achieve. It was 
broken by the ostentatious entrance of Sally, 
who cast a scandalized glance at the 
untouched tea. Her acid comment, however, 
died upon her lips as she caught sight of the 
culprits. For a moment she gaped. Then, 
smiling wisely and with great satisfaction, she 
bore away the tray. 

Drawing the door to with her foot she 
announced over her shoulder: “Ill bring some 
in fresh — in ten minutes. By that time, 
maybe, youll be able to give your attention to 
it; and the cakes, over which I’ve been broil¬ 
ing my face and breaking my back half of the 
afternoon!” 

Binny giggled helplessly. Farrance 
smoothed his hair hurriedly in front of the 
mirror. The white cat stirred, stretched a 
languid paw and yawned, eyeing them both 
with withering contempt. From the window 
boxes there came a warm rush of hyacinth- 


214 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


scented air. Farrance turned abruptly and 
caught the girl by the shoulders. 

“Lola!” he whispered, thickly, eagerly. 
“Oh, Lola! When are you going to marry 
me?” 

Binny gasped, and stiffened suddenly. Once 
more cold fingers of dismay were groping at 
her heart. Her eyes widened, grew distressed. 

“Oh!” she whispered blankly. “Oh! But 
— but I hadn’t thought about being married!” 

Farrance stared. The light died out of his 
eyes. Then, unexpectedly, he threw back his 
head and laughed. 

Binny flushed, and wriggled quickly free. 
“I mean . . . need we think about that just 
yet?” Her eyes were appealing; she stood 
with her hands clasped before her, very earn¬ 
est, sobered, troubled. 

A shadow crossed Farrance’s face, and he 
sighed. “I thought,” he reproached her, “that 
you said you loved me.” 

“I do!” The flush deepened to a rose so 
glorious that he had difficulty in preventing 
himself from catching her in his arms again. 
“It is not that! Only — only — marriage 
...” She broke off, spreading her hands 
wide. She turned away quickly, and went to 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 215 


the window, leaning far out over the hya¬ 
cinths. He followed, and she went on 
quickly: “I don’t suppose you understand. 
Only, I’ve been so free. I’ve never thought — 
very seriously — about being married. And 
then, there’s my work. You’d want me to give 
that up if — if I married you. And I 
couldn’t. At least, not yet. There’s my con¬ 
tract with Mr. Van Bevan.” She looked back 
at him over her shoulder. 

Farrance’s face was moody, yet again, in 
spite of himself, he smiled. “What a kid 
you are!” he exclaimed. “What a lovely, 
lovely kid! And — only a few short months 
ago, Lola — I believed you to be an absolute 
woman of the world! Lord, how you’ve 
changed!” 

Binny frowned, bit her lip, and drew her¬ 
self back into the room again. “For better 
or worse?” she demanded, with that irrepres¬ 
sible coquetry of even the least flirtatious 
woman who knows she has a man absolutely 
enslaved. 

“Infinitely for the better!” Farrance as¬ 
sured her fervently. “Oh, Lola! I didn’t 
begin to really love you until that night when 
you surprised us all with your dancing at 


216 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


Dallas’s flat. I liked you; you attracted me. 
I delighted in your beauty. But it wasn’t the 
same. Not the same as now.” 

“Do you mean that? Really mean it, from 
your very soul?” Binny’s hand flashed out 
and closed upon his sleeve. Her eyes, oddly 
intent, searched his. She seemed to wait with 
a curious tenseness, eagerness, anxiety, for his 
answer. 

He gave it after a minute, quietly, with a 
sincerity she could not question: “I mean it, 
Lola. I don’t know what happened, that 
night. I don’t know what spell you used to 
change me, and yourself. It was as if all 
my heart went out to you in a sudden rush 
of tenderness which I had never felt for you 
before. I knew that night, definitely, and 
for the first time, that I loved you. That I 
should always love you. That my love for 
you, like my need of you, would grow greater 
with every passing day. Oh, yes, my dear. 
I mean it!” 

He drew a long breath, adding, before she 
could speak: “I don’t quite know how to 
express it, Lola, but you seemed to lure the 
very heart out of my body that night. I’ve 
ached ever since with the longing to hold you 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 217 


in my arms, knowing you absolutely mine!” 

Binny, to hide a fresh fluttering of her 
pulses, a deeper confusion, took refuge in 
soft mockery. “One would think you’d been 
taking lessons in love-making from Terry 
O’Farrer!” she asserted wickedly. “Not” — 
in some haste — “that I’ve ever heard him 
make love, but I can imagine how he’d do it! 
By the way — ” 

“Lola!” Farrance caught her by the shoul¬ 
ders again, shaking her gently. “Be seri¬ 
ous!” he pleaded. “Oh, my dear, I’m in 
deadly earnest. You don’t know, you can’t 
know, how greatly I care, or you wouldn’t 
make fun of me! ” 

“I’m not making fun!” Binny sobered 
instantly, touched, remorseful. “There’s 
nothing to make fun of.” Her eyes, troubled 
still, but sweetly intent, met his. “I’m glad, 
and proud, and happy that you should love 
me. I’m glad that I love you. Only — for a 
little while — I don’t want to think about 
being married.” 

She lifted her hands and laid them gently 
upon his breast. “I’m a worker,” she told 
him, speaking rapidly, earnestly. “I’ve got 
my profession, a profession I love. And when 


218 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


I marry you, you’ll want me to give it up. 
That’s natural enough; and I should expect it. 
But I don’t want to give it up quite yet. 
I want to go on just a bit longer. I want 
to taste a little more of the delight of doing 
well, the pride of achieving a certain amount 
of fame. And I want to give Mr. Van Bevan 
a full run for his money. I wonder if you 
understand?” Voice and eyes were wistful. 

Farrance laid his hands over those clasped 
against his breast. A new tenderness was in 
his eyes, a shadow of reflected wistfulness. “I 
do. And I’ll be content — or try to be — 
if you’ll let me announce our engagement; 
if you will promise to marry me some time, 
not too far distant.” 

Under his Binny’s fingers stirred. Her eyes 
were veiled. She did not answer immediately, 
and the line of her grave lips was troubled. 
She was assailed by new qualms of doubt and 
uncertainty. For the moment, thrilling to 
the love in his voice, she had forgotten that 
she was not really Lola Arnaut; that she 
was an impostor. She was a cheat; she was 
wearing another woman’s name, living another 
woman’s life. She was suddenly afraid. And 
then her mouth grew stern. She might be 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 219 


wearing Lola Arnaut’s identity, might be an 
impostor; but she was earning her own living, 
and by her own skill and talent and hard 
work. And it was herself, not Lola Arnaut, 
that this man loved. She knew that, was sure 
of it. Slowly, half unwillingly, she lifted her 
head and looked at him. 

He bent quickly to her, his eyes eager. 
“Will you?” he begged. “Lola — will you?” 

An instant longer Binny hesitated. Then 
she nodded. And as his arms went round her, 
Sally appeared once more upon the threshold 
with fresh tea. Binny made a startled move¬ 
ment to free herself, but Farrance held her 
fast. 

Sally, grinning from ear to ear, set the 
tray down, and stood regarding them benevo¬ 
lently, arms akimbo. 

“At last!” she remarked, with the occasion¬ 
ally staggering and unconscious familiarity of 
the privileged person of her class. “Sure, I’ve 
guessed all the way along that there was 
love-making in the air, and I reckoned things 
were gettin’ a move on when you both forgot 
your tea — and the tea-cakes.” She rubbed 
one hand upon an ample hip and presented 
it first to Binny, then to Farrance. 


220 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


“You’re lucky!” she assured him. “I’ve 
never lived with a young lady I’ve liked better 
than Miss Lola, never. Not but what she’s 
lucky, too, sir. And now, do be havin’ your 
tea. You can’t live on love, you know — and 
it’s fresh made and the cakes nice and hot.” 

Binny gurgled; Farrance laughed outright. 

At the door Sally paused. “Which re¬ 
minds me,” she said inconsequently, “Miss 
Farrance has just rung up, askin’ if you’d 
be in. I took the liberty of tellin’ her you 
were engaged for twenty minutes or so, but 
that after that she’d be sure to find you here 
all right. I’ll bring her right in! ” 

Binny, very pink, and adorably ruffled, sub¬ 
sided hastily into a chair before the tea-tray. 
Farrance went and stood beside her, “eatin’ 
her with his eyes,” as Sally romantically 
expressed it as she closed the door. 

“Which reminds me,” he said, taking his 
cup, “that Irma became engaged to Kyrle 
Harkness last night. I don’t think I’ve ever 
been so surprised.” 

“ What ?” Binny put the tea-cup down with 
a clatter and sat upright. There was shocked 
amaze and disbelief in her whole expression. 

Farrance made a gesture. “It’s quite true. 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 221 


I admit I don’t understand it. She — she’s 
had the deuce of a time with our parents, 
but she stood out against them with a deter¬ 
mination I thought nothing could shake. And 
it’s been pretty plain to me — to you, as well, 
I do not doubt — that Terry and she —” 

“She’s in love with Terry! She’s as much 
in love with him as he is with her! She will 
always be in love with him! She must be 
crazy, quite crazy!” She stopped, breath¬ 
less. 

Once more, it seemed, Sally’s cakes were 
destined to be left untouched. With Binny’s 
outburst came the distant ringing of the door¬ 
bell. Binny reached her feet as Sally, 
with a flourish, announced Irma Farrance. 

Before the door had well closed again, she 
was at the other girl’s side, her face full of 
question and concern. “Irma! It’s not true, 
surely, surely, that you’re engaged to Mr. 
Harkness? Dudley has just told me, but I 
don’t believe it. I can’t!” 

Irma put her hand up to her breast as 
though to loosen her fur, and let it fall again. 
She came forward wearily and dropped into 
the chair by the tray. 

“It’s quite true.” She spoke heavily, dully, 


222 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


and Binny caught an audible breath. For a 
moment she thought of Terry, and rage shook 
her. 

“Oh! But how could you? Howard you! 
When it’s Terry you love — Terry you’ll go 
on loving till you die!” 

Irma winced as though she had been struck. 

Binny went on, a whirlwind of emotion. “I 
didn’t think you were that sort of girl. I 
didn’t think, just because Terry’s poor, you’d 
treat him so! I didn’t think — Oh!” She 
stopped suddenly, smitten by the sight of 
Irma’s suffering face. In a moment she was 
at her side again, kneeling by her. “Why?” 
she demanded. “Why did you do it? Why 
did you give in? Why — why — why?” 

Irma lifted her hands and let them fall back 
helplessly into her lap. Her eyes met Binny’s 
drearily, without resentment. “There was 
nothing else to do,” she said at last, slowly, 
and Binny, catching her by the shoulders, 
shook her forcefully. 

“Why?” she cried again. Her tone was 
passionately insistent. 

Farrance, his eyes upon his sister’s white 
face, came a step forward, but Binny pushed 
aside his outstretched hand. And, presently, 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 223 


as if half against her will, yet with a certain 
relief, Irma answered. 

“For Terry’s own sake. He’s in trouble. 
Bad trouble. With — with some money¬ 
lender. Kyrle Harkness knows him — the 
money-lender. He can use his influence to 
prevent him pressing Terry unduly; can 
help Terry—save him! ” Again she put up her 
hand to her furs. “Only,” she added, earn¬ 
estly, “Terry must not know! He must not! ” 

There was a sudden silence. It endured 
for several moments. Then, abruptly, Binny 
whirled to her feet. Her lips were apart, her 
eyes had begun to shine. Then in a flash she 
was gone. They heard her calling to Sally 
for hat and coat, then her voice at the tele¬ 
phone, giving a number imperatively. 

“That Mr. Clay’s office — Mr. Benjamin 
Clay? Yes. Is Mr. Clay there? Will you 
tell him a lady is coming along to see him at 
once. A lady — the name doesn’t matter 
now. Only she must see Mr. Clay himself . 
She must ... I can’t help Mr. Clay’s orders. 
Tell him that the lady — knew Mary Munro! 
Thanks. That’s all. I’ll hold the line till 
you find out if he’ll see me. . . . Hello! 
Hello! Yes — Mr. Clay will see me? Will 


224 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


wait? Thank you. Tell him I’m coming at 
once. Good- bye! ” She put down the receiver 
and stood up stiffly. The blaze of excitement 
was still in her eyes. 

As she slipped into the coat the amazed 
Sally held for her, she murmured, cryptically, 
and with something of awe: “They must — 
he must — be the same Benjamin Clay . l#J 
since ‘Mary Munro’ did the the trick!” 


XXV 


“Land’s sake!” Sally was expostulating, be- 
wilderedly, but Binny waved her imperatively 
to silence. 

“Go and see if you can grab a taxi — 
quick!” she urged. 

She turned to where Farrance had come 
to the door of the sitting-room, nodding to him 
cheerfully and excitedly as she hastened to 
pull on her gloves. 

“It’s all right! ” she assured him. “At least, 
it’s going to be. You and Irma stay here 
awhile in case I’m back fairly soon. If I’m 
longer than an hour, don’t wait. I’ll have to 
go straight on to the theatre. Come to me 
there.” 

Binny was in her element. There was 
something to be done; something interesting, 
exciting, helpful. She was scenting battle 
from afar, and tingling with anticipated joy. 
Binny had been like that ever since her sadly 
neglected babyhood, or she would not have 
been one of the fit ones who survive. She 
grinned now at Farrance’s blank stare, and 
made a movement towards the door. 


226 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


He strode swiftly after her. “But . . . 
Good Heavens, Lola! Where are you going? 
What are you going to do?” His tone was 
disturbed, his eyes frowning. 

Binny fastened the last glove button and 
grinned again. “I’m going to the office of 
the notorious Mr. Benjamin Clay. I’m going 
to have an interview with him, private and 
personal — and strictly confidential. If I’m 
at all good at guessing, I rather think I’m 
going to give him a nasty jolt. Anyway, I’m 
going to try and get ahead of Mr. Kyrle 
Harkness on the fairy godmother, amiable 
benefactor stunt! Beyond that I can’t tell 
you anything, as I haven’t the slightest idea of 
what’s going to happen myself! So long! ” 

She paused at the grip of his hand upon 
her arm. 

“Lola! Are you out of your mind? No 
one knows this man Clay, or what he’s like. 
There’s something altogether queer about 
him! You can’t go to his office, alone. It’s 
impossible! ” 

Binny shook her head. She freed her arm 
deftly and slipped across the threshold. At 
the kerb a taxi was purring, Sally panting by 
its side. 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 227 


Binny grimaced at Farrance provocatively. 
“Not on your life, it isn’t!” she assured him 
emphatically, and, before he could protest 
anew, pulled the door to neatly in his face. 

Driving swiftly away from the flat, she lay 
back and laughed, but grew almost immedi¬ 
ately sober again. She had spoken nothing 
but the truth when she had said that she had 
no idea of what was going to happen. Until 
this moment she had given no clear thought 
to what she was going to do or say when at 
last she stood face to face with Benjamin 
Clay. All that was in her mind was to help 
Irma Farrance, to free her and Terry from 
any obligation towards Kyrle Harkness. Be¬ 
yond that her brain remained inactive. 

In speaking of Mary Munro across the 
telephone, she had drawn a bow at a venture, 
urged thereto by that insidious, bewildering 
suspicion that the Benjamin Clay of her 
mother’s life and the money-lender were one 
and the same. That the suspicion should prove 
correct took her breath away. Her eyes wid¬ 
ened; she clenched her hands hard. Now she 
was beginning to think of other things besides 
those troubles of her friends: was beginning 
to think of this unknown Benjamin Clay not 


228 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


just as a stranger. Her breath quickened, 
the wide eyes grew keen. She was frightened 
now at what she had done; more than a little 
perplexed at what she was to do. It was 
being borne in upon her that she still wore 
Lola Arnaut’s identity. She had probed, 
recklessly, into the past as Binny Clay! She 
thanked the Providence that had hitherto 
guided her that she had said no more than 
that she knew of Mary Munro, had not other¬ 
wise committed herself. 

After all, there was still time to think ahead, 
to collect herself, to make some sort of plan. 
She sighed and relaxed, unclenching her hands. 
But by the time she reached Clay’s office, she 
was no nearer a conclusion as to how she might 
best deal with the situation; put her knowl¬ 
edge of the money-lender’s past to account. 

She had used Mary Munro’s name, on an 
impulse, to force an interview. It occurred 
to her that, beyond gaining the interview, 
she was not much better off than before. 
Nevertheless, she was perfectly cool as she 
asked for Clay, stating that he had promised 
her an appointment. She followed a defer¬ 
ential person with somewhat shifty and suspi¬ 
cious eyes through luxurious offices into a small, 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 229 


perfectly appointed, severely business-like but 
comfortable room, upon the door of which 
Benjamin Clay’s name was written, and which 
was occupied by a keen, well-dressed, efficient¬ 
looking man of possibly fifty. His manner 
was smooth, suave, even deferential as he rose 
upon Binny’s entrance. Her guide closed the 
door gently behind her, and disappeared, and 
Binny, instinctively on guard, watchful, halted 
upon the threshold. She stood waiting quietly 
for him to speak, cautious, as life had taught 
her to be cautious; aware of the fact that it is 
always better to let an opponent make the 
first move. She sensed, somehow, that this 
polished person was an opponent. 

He said, at last: “Mr. Clay is not here. 
He never attends the office ... or sees 
clients . . . personally. I am strictly in Mr. 
Clay’s confidence — my name is Forbes.” 

He indicated a chair. Binny regarded it — 
and him — consideringly. Then she stiffened. 
Those fine nostrils of hers were ever so 
slightly dilated. Again she was scenting 
battle. She shook her head. 

“I distinctly said over the ’phone that I 
wished to interview Mr. Clay personally. I 
gathered he agreed. If you will remind him 


230 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


that I come with — er — some slight infor¬ 
mation concerning Mary Munro, I think he 
will prefer that my business is not transacted 
through a third person.” 

Forbes frowned, hesitated, and, meeting the 
determined young eyes, reached for the tele¬ 
phone. Binny turned her back and saun¬ 
tered to the window. When she faced round 
again, Forbes was moving to the door. 

“As I have said, Mr. Clay never comes here. 
But he will see you at his private residence. 
I will take you there.” 

Binny’s eyes snapped. She pursed her lips, 
frowned, then sat down deliberately in the 
big padded chair. 

“You’ve got another guess coming!” she 
informed him, somewhat inelegantly. “My 
friends know I’m here. Here I stay. 
I imagine you don’t know who I am, 
or you’d be wise to the fact that I 
don’t trail round after folks unnecessarily. 
They usually trail round after me. This being 
a business interview, I expect Mr. Clay to 
keep his appointment with me on his business 
premises. You might tell him so.” 

Mr. Forbes regarded her obliquely. He was 
curious, and Binny knew it. She concluded 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 231 


that the theatre was not his favourite place of 
amusement, since he quite obviously did not 
know her, though her face might be familiar 
to him. She, however, gave him no further 
information, waiting serenely until, with a 
rather sullen murmur of protest, he spoke once 
more into the telephone. 

She did not even look up at his: “Mr. Clay 
will come.” Absorbed in thought, she was 
wondering just exactly how she would greet 
him when he did. She heard another murmur 
from Mr. Forbes, the sound of the closing 
door. Minutes passed; again she glanced at 
her watch, got up and walked about the room, 
frowning, and finally sat down again. 

Five minutes later the door was opened. 

“Mr. Clay!” impressively announced the 
unctuous voice of Mr. Forbes. 

Binny turned her head. Then, with a little 
strangled cry, she sprang to her feet. 

“Oh!” she said breathlessly, and stopped. 

Against the dark oak panels, his rather 
pleasant face changing slowly from a mask of 
impassivity to utter amaze, looking her fully 
in the eyes, stood Kyrle Harkness. 


XXVI 


“Mr. Harkness!” 

“Good Lord! Lola Arnaut!” 

They exclaimed simultaneously, and stood 
mute for a moment afterwards, staring 
blankly, both of them bewildered, suspicious, 
questioning. 

It was Binny who recovered herself first. 
Forbes had gone; Harkness made an instinc¬ 
tive movement as if to open the door and call 
him back. She checked it sharply, a small, 
ungloved hand uplifted. 

“Wait! ” The word was at once a command 
and an appeal. 

Harkness, scarcely realizing what he was 
doing, took his fingers from the knob and 
advanced slowly a few paces into the room. 
Binny, wide-eyed, striving wildly to make 
order out of the chaos of her mind, drew an 
audible breath. 

“Mr. Harkness!” she murmured again, and 
added, quickly, amazedly, before he could 
speak — “So you — you” — the astonishment 
in her eyes changed, suddenly, to an illumi- 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 233 


nating comprehension — “you are Benjamin 
Clay! Your 

Harkness flushed a dull red. His hands were 
rather tightly clenched, his lips compressed. 
His whole face looked grim, hard, furiously 
angry. 

Again Binny gestured, rather helplessly. “I 
did not know!” she assured him. “I had not 
the slightest idea of such a thing! I thought 
,. . .” She stopped, grown quickly cautious. 
She was regaining her mental equilibrium, 
remembering Terry — Irma — the part Hark¬ 
ness had essayed to play in the lives of both. 

For the immediate moment she decided to 
thrust herself, Mary Munro, and the latter’s 
connection with Benjamin Clay into the im¬ 
mediate background; to keep before her only 
her object of helping the two who were her 
friends. 

Alley cat that circumstances had made of 
her in her childhood, she was still ever wary, 
ever on the alert, ever suspicious. Now she 
was rapidly coming to the conclusion that it 
would be best to hold her hand, to let the 
war break in the enemy’s camp. For herself, 
she was already making up her mind to use 
the weapon with which Fate had so unex- 


234 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


pectedly armed her — the discovery that the 
mysterious and somewhat notorious Benja¬ 
min Clay and Kyrle Harkness were one and 
the same. 

For the fact to become public would, she 
knew, seriously handicap Harkness in his social 
aspirations, if not actually damn any chance 
he might have of attaining to equality with 
Irma and her kind. A pleasant sense of having 
a very considerable advantage of him rose up 
within her, restoring her poise, giving her 
confidence. She waited, shrewd eyes upon his 
face. 

Harkness broke the silence at last. “You 
thought — ? Well, what did you think, Miss 
Arnaut? And to what strange whim am I 
indebted for the honour of your visit?” His 
voice was cold. 

Binny flushed and stirred, but her eyes 
hardened. The small chin went up. “Don’t 
ride a high horse, Mr. Harkness. It won’t 
help. As I have been telling you, my business 
was — is — with Benjamin Clay. I did not 
know that you were he.” 

Harkness’s mouth was set in a very straight 
line. He said: “That is not surprising. No¬ 
body does; nor is any one likely to!” 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 235 


Binny blinked at him rather disconcert¬ 
ingly. “No? That is very satisfactory — if 
you’d rather they didn’t.” 

Some quality in her voice made him look at 
her keenly, flushing anew; and a glint of steel 
grew in his eyes. Binny met them unwaver¬ 
ingly. The wild-rose deepened in her cheeks, 
the scent of battle was keener in her nostrils. 
She moved slowly nearer to the big writing- 
table, seating herself on its edge. Again, 
deliberately, exasperatingly, she waited for 
him to proceed. 

He did so, keeping his voice cool with an 
obvious effort. Somehow, vaguely, he sensed 
a challenge in her smile, her unflurried gaze. 

“Well? My dear Miss Arnaut, my time is 
valuable, and we’re wasting it. . . . Your 
telephone message was to the effect that your 
business with me was to do with — ah — one 
Mary Munro.” 

Binny made a little gesture. “That doesn’t 
matter now!” she announced startlingly, and 
with an audacity that surprised herself. “I 
mean,” she added, as he stared, “it is of 
secondary consideration now that I know who 
you really are!” She swung herself up onto 
the table and sat regarding him with her hands 


236 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


folded in her lap. “As you have pointed out, 
your time is valuable, Mr. Harkness. So’s 
mine. I’ve got to be at the theatre pretty 
soon, and I want to get things squared up 
before I leave here. That being so, I’ll go 
dead ahead.” She tilted her head question- 
ingly on one side; but Harkness crushed his 
hands into his pockets and did not answer. 

“I knew,” Binny proceeded in swift expla¬ 
nation, “that Benjamin Clay was inaccessible; 
that he would grant no personal interview to 
anybody. As it was imperative that I should 
see him personally, I suggested that my busi¬ 
ness was concerning Mary Munro. As a 
matter of fact — ” 

“One moment!” Harkness’s voice was 
harsh. “What do you know of Mary 
Munro?” 

For an instant Binny hesitated. Then she 
answered deliberately, and with the utmost 
simplicity: “That she was your wife. The 
mother of your child.” 

“What?” Harkness shouted the word at 
her, and she paled ever so slightly, but her 
eyes remained tranquil. 

“I have proofs. The certificate of mar¬ 
riage — of the child’s birth.” 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 237 


“The child! But . . . Good God!” He 
turned away from her, and began pacing up 
and down the room. That he was profoundly 
agitated was more than plain, and Binny 
watched him for a while, half frowning. He 
paused again at last, directly opposite to her. 
“I didn’t know there was a child!” he said, 
and his voice was a shade hoarse; the angry 
colour had died leaving him curiously white. 
Then his eyes flashed searchingly, insistently 
upon hers. “How do you know these things, 
anyway?” 

“I knew — the child,” she said slowly. “I 
knew the woman who looked after her . . . 
kept her . . . after her mother went away.” 

“What else do you know?” 

Binny shook her head. “Very little. Noth¬ 
ing of what occurred before the birth of the 
child, of where Mary Munro came from or of 
who she was.” She was leaning a little for¬ 
ward, her lips slightly apart, conscious of a 
quickening eagerness and interest. “I came 
by my knowledge of her relationship to you 
by accident,” she went on. “I used it to force 
an interview with you — so that I might speak 
to you upon another matter. I gathered from 
the woman who cared for her child that Mary 


238 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


Munro had run away from her home to go on 
the stage.” She paused. 

Harkness’s grim mouth twitched. “Yes. 
Only — really — she was driven away.” He 
spoke without looking at her, his eyes the 
eyes of one looking far, far back into the past. 
He went on, almost as if unconscious of her 
presence: “I drove her away. We were 
cousins — really utterly unsuited — but we 
fancied ourselves in love. We were very 
young; she was romantic. Our people did not 
greatly approve of the match, and we chose 
to run away. We were married — after the 
Scotch fashion — before witnesses. And for 
a while we were happy. But only for a while. 
My dream was to make money, to go far. 
Mary’s was to enjoy herself — to live among 
lights and laughter. ... We came very soon 
to quarrelling, to the realization that we’d 
made a mistake. She wanted to go on the 
stage; I wouldn’t hear of it. She threatened 
to defy me, urging that she wished she had 
never given up her freedom. I lost my head 
and my temper then. I told her that the form 
of marriage through which we had gone was 
not binding; not really legal iV iV He 
paused. 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 239 


Binny drew a deep breath. A queer still¬ 
ness had fallen upon the room; the girl was 
shivering a little, the man staring back into 
the mists of the past. 

“I believe,” he went on, “that I was right. 
I am pretty sure, indeed. I never saw Mary 
again after that moment. I remember her 
as I flung out of the house — very white and 
still and scared. When I came back, she was 
gone. I don’t know where; I never have 
known. I searched for her, remorseful, des¬ 
perately disturbed, with every intention of 
having the marriage immediately legalized, 
but I never found her ...” He stopped. 

Again there was silence; then, jarringly, 
the telephone bell rang close to Binny’s side. 
Impulsively, almost unconsciously, she caught 
up the receiver. A second later, himself 
again, cold, quiet, expressionless, Harkness 
came forward to take it. 

But she waved him away. “The message 
is for me,” she told him — “from Mr. Far- 
rance. Yes? Oh, yes — I’m quite safe. I 
am with Mr. Clay in his private office. . . . 
Yes, if you like. Get here in about ten 
minutes. They’ll ring up from downstairs 
and tell me when you’re here. . . Oh, yes, 


240 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


I’ll stay right here till you come. . . . ’Bye.” 

She set the receiver back carefully and 
looked up at Harkness. Once more her mind 
was on the business in hand. She said, 
quickly: “ Any thing else concerning Mary 
Munro that I know I can tell you later. You 
can call to-morrow, pretty nearly any time. 
Now I want to get at the reason of my visit 
here. I come from Irma Farrance. Rather, 
I come on her behalf, and upon Terry 
O’Farrer’s.” 

She saw the flash of his eyes, and locked 
her hands tightly together. She went on 
before he could speak. “They are in love 
with each other, those two, Mr. — Harkness. 
They’ll break their hearts if they’re parted. 
They will!” She leaned forward catching at 
his arm. “I came to you to see if I could 

— get you to make things easier for them. 
You have Terry in your power. Now that I 
know who you are, I can imagine that you’ve 
deliberately drawn him into negotiations 
which he would otherwise never have made. 
You can ruin him. And because of this you 

— as Kyrle Harkness, influencing Benjamin 
Clay! —have coerced Irma into promising to 
marry you!” 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 241 


Harkness took his hands out of his pockets 
and came nearer. Instinctively Binny slid her 
hand towards the telephone. 

“Well?” There was something of fury in 
his voice, cold, implacable. 

“Well,” Binny echoed quietly, “I want you 
to give back all those papers, which are a 
menace to him, to Terry. I want you to set 
him free of all except fair and really honour¬ 
able debt to you. I want you to cease to 
‘squeeze’ him — and I want you to give Irma 
— now, at once, to-night — her freedom 
again! ” She paused. 

Harkness stared, then flung back his head 
and broke into harsh laughter. He sobered 
instantly, however, and Binny shrank a little 
from the expression in his eyes. 

“So! You’ve got plenty of — er — may 
I be forgiven if I say impudence, Miss Arnaut? 
And may I ask why on earth I should accede, 
unprotestingly, to your amazing request?” 

“Because,” Binny assured him gravely, “it 
would be so much wiser — and pleasanter!” 

“You mean?” Harkness’s voice held a 
menace now. 

Binny glanced at her wrist-watch and slid 
carefully from the table. 


242 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


“I’m late,” she murmured; then — “Oh, 
really Mr. Harkness!” she reproached him 
— “surely you’re not, after all, a stupid man? 
Terry and Irma are my friends — my very 
good friends. And I hate seeing folks un¬ 
happy. You can make them happy. You’ve 
got to make them happy. If you don’t — 
why, then, I shall probably be unpleasantly 
catty!” 

She held up her hand as again he moved 
towards her: “Don’t try any rough stuff!” 
she advised him coolly. “Dudley Farrance 
knows I’m here — that I shan’t leave till he 
comes for me. He’s probably downstairs 
now. ... You can’t harm me, and you can’t 
stop me speaking. It’s up to you whether or 
not I clear up the mystery of the identity of 
the notorious and not greatly loved — er — 
‘shark,’ don’t some folks call you? — Benja¬ 
min Clay! Now I guess I’ll be going. Per¬ 
haps you’ll think things over and ’phone 
through to the theatre. I’d like to put Irma’s 
mind at rest as soon as possible — she’ll want 
to contradict the rumor of her engagement to 
you as soon as possible.” 

She fluttered to the door, opened it, nodded 
cheerfully, and was gone. 


XXVII 


Harkness started in the direction of the 
closing door, stopped short and swung back 
to the table. He dropped heavily into the 
chair before it, and swore. Then, for a very 
long time, he sat there, staring straight ahead 
of him, his face grim and set and very still. 
Under scowling brows his eyes burned, with 
smouldering rage, with impotent resentment 
— and with memories. 

He found himself looking back over years 
which had been barren of all but an over¬ 
weening ambition and a craving to make 
money, to days when neither power nor 
wealth had been his. Since those days he 
had loved no woman until Irma Farrance had 
come into his life. He had had no time for 
love. His thoughts had dwelt only upon place 
and power; his determination had been to buy 
them, some day, somehow. 

In Irma he had first seen one who could 
draw him up from the middle rungs of the 
social ladder upon which he stood to the 
summit, or within reach of it. With growing 


244 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


acquaintance had awakened admiration; new 
desires had stirred in him. He had begun 
to think of the woman herself, as well as of 
those things she could help him attain. He 
had learned to care for her; had remembered 
that he was still but a little way over the 
borderland of youth, with many years before 
him. 

Now he loved Irma as well as needed her 
help. His feeling for her had driven him to 
forcing her consent to a union. The battle 
had been hard, but he had won. Only to-day 
triumph had tasted sweet upon his lips. He 
had seen, in Irma’s weary capitulation, an¬ 
other stepping-stone to the fulfilment of his 
ambition. He had fought and won! Success 
was his, already within his grasp. And then, 
out of a clear sky, had come a whisper of 
reminder, a breath from the past .... Mary 
Munro’s name. 

He set his teeth hard, clenching his hands 
upon the edge of the table. Forbes, coming 
softly to the door, retreated hastily, amazed 
and startled by the unexpected snarl his 
employer flung at him. Day failed, and 
shadow shapes filled the room, and still 
Harkness sat on, motionless. 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 245 


The interview with Binny had jarred him 
badly; the mention of Mary Munro left him 
shaken. His nerves were frayed, on edge. 
Once he rose and went to the window. He 
seemed to see Binny’s face before him, deter¬ 
mined, the wide eyes unwavering, grimly 
determined. They haunted him, those eyes, 
and he passed his hand across his own, vaguely 
wondering. 

Then he shook himself savagely. A gust 
of rage against the girl rose within him; he was 
aware of an almost overwhelming impulse to 
ignore her utterly — her speech of a woman 
long since dead to him—her knowledge of who 
he was — her final, quiet threat of exposure. 

Yet even as he stood again by the table, 
palms pressed down upon the polished oak, 
shoulders hunched, his brain was beginning to 
clear; gropingly he was reaching after facts, 
facing them grimly and unwillingly. He 
knew that Binny could do him infinite dam¬ 
age. He knew that the ball of scandal, set 
rolling, would be impossible to stop. He 
might deny for a while her assertion of his 
identity, but not for always. And with the 
truth blazoned abroad, all the hopes for which 
he had striven would come to naught. Irma’s 


246 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


people might tolerate Kyrle Harkness. In 
spite of his wealth, they would draw the line at 
Benjamin Clay, the money-lender. 

He was a hard man, and, in his building up 
of fortune, he had been pitiless, unscrupulous. 
The world knew it. Benjamin Clay’s reputa¬ 
tion was one which would close all doors 
against him. Money might gild much, but 
not everything. 

This girl, Lola Arnaut, had the whip-hand, 
without doubt. This girl whose success he 
had helped to finance. He laughed harshly, 
bitterly, then stood upright, squaring his 
shoulders. He knew that her threat was no 
idle one. He must free Irma, must confess his 
dealings with young O’Farrer outrageous and 
unfair; must loose the strangle-hold he had 
upon him. He must stand aside, content him¬ 
self with that which was already his; must 
turn his eyes from those giddy heights towards 
which he had been straining for so long. It 
was bitter knowledge, and he fought a bitter 
battle. But long ago Harkness had learned 
to accept defeat stoically, as well as success. 
Binny had turned his weapons of coercion 
against himself. To Binny the victory. 

Slowly, very reluctantly, he reached his 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 247 


hand to the receiver of the telephone. He 
rang Lola Arnaut at the theatre. After a 
wait, to him, chafing, furious, a wait that was 
intolerable, he heard her voice. It was 
smooth, perfectly controlled. But there was 
a note of eagerness, of anxiety in it, and he 
smiled grimly. 

“Harkness speaking!” he announced 
brusquely. Yet his tone held a quality of 
laconic calm that sent a little tingle of admi¬ 
ration through Binny. “I guess you’ve played 
your ace, Miss Arnaut. Here . .. . as you 
might possibly put it yourself . L . is where 
I get off! Good-bye!” 

.... r.i .1 

Dudley Farrance, after an interminable 
wait in the vestibule of Benjamin Clay’s build¬ 
ing of offices, had fumed helplessly throughout 
an all too rapid drive to the theatre. 

Binny, bright of eye, flushed of cheek, had 
vouchsafed no information of any sort. “I 
can’t tell you anything!” she had declared. 
“I haven’t time. Besides, I’m not quite sure 
yet how things are going to turn out. But I’ll 
know pretty soon, and — and, oh, Dudley! 
Tell Irma I think it’s going to be all right! 
That I’m nearly sure it is! ... ... k .. And find 


248 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


Terry! He’s not likely to be in a fit state of 
mind to be knocking round by himself.” 

Now, huddled in a flowered, silken wrap, 
only half dressed for the second act, and with 
Sally clucking and snorting impatiently in the 
background, she greeted an O’Farrer in whose 
haggard cheeks a bright spot of colour burned, 
whose eyes were blazing with a light that 
made her catch her breath. 

Impulsively, eagerly, she stretched her 
hands towards him. “Terry! It’s all right! 
There’s nothing to worry about any more. 
Oh, for my sake, don’t look like that! I’ll 
howl if you do, and my make-up will be 
spoiled. It is all right, I tell you!” 

“I know!” The boy released her hands 
and made a helpless movement of his own. 
“I know! I’ve heard from Clay!” 

“Already!” Binny’s eyes opened wide, then 
an odd little smile of admiration twisted her 
lips. “Some hustler!” she commented, drily. 
Then: “Tell me — quick!” 

Terry ran his fingers through his hair. 
“There’s scarcely anything to tell! A packet 
came to my rooms — by special messenger, to¬ 
night — not fifteen minutes ago. There was a 
note in it signed by Clay; a bare half-dozen 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 249 


words, admitting that his dealings with me 
had not been just or fair. He sent me back 
my letters — my notes of hand — every 
blessed paper that would give him any kind 
of hold over me — torn into small pieces! 
Oh, good Lord! I can’t understand it!” 

Binny breathed long, and deep, and happily. 
“All you need to understand, little man,” she 
assured him — “that there’s nothing to worry 
about any more; nothing that’s of any real 
importance, anyway. Mr. Clay, having seen 
the error of his ways, has made amends . . . 
generously. I guess you can leave it at that.” 

“Yes, but — ” He stopped at the sound of 
a light tap on the door. 

Sally, grunting, answered it; stood aside for 
Farrance to enter. He looked quickly from 
his friend to Binny. He answered the eager 
question of her eyes immediately: “I’ve come 
from Irma. She had to keep a dinner engage¬ 
ment, but she’ll be round later. She wants 
me to tell you that she has heard from 
Harkness. Here’s his letter.” 

Binny took it, and read rapidly: 

Dear Miss Farrance, 

I have been thinking very seriously concerning 
our conversation, and subsequent understanding, 


250 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


of last night; and I feel that, in my eagerness 
for the happiness that only you can give me, I 
have shown myself in somewhat sorry colours. I 
feel, too, that to insist upon fulfilment of your 
promise to me, under the circumstances, would be 
to forfeit your respect. 

Therefore, if you can be generous enough to 
show forgiveness by permitting me to retain, in 
small measure, your friendship, I shall ever be 
most sincerely your grateful and humble slave 
and will try and make myself content with a 
greater boon than, I admit, I deserve. 

Wishing you whole-heartedly, happiness now, 
and in the future 

Yours to command always 

Kyrle Harkness 

“O— oh!” Binny crooned. She handed 
the letter to Terry, squeezing his arm. “Oh! 
But that’s pretty white —and diplomatic! 
As a Chink would say, our friend, Mr. 
Harkness, ‘saves much face’! Terry, my 
son, get a move on, and hike along in quest of 
your beloved. . . . I’ll give you my bless¬ 
ing later in the evening. At the immediate 
moment I’ve got to see how quickly I can get 
dressed within a limit of seven minutes! The 
curtain goes up in four! Shoo! Vamoose! 
Go out and look stunned in the corridor!” 

She whirled upon Farrance, urging both 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 251 


men impatiently towards the door. “You, 
too! Sally’ll have an apoplectic fit in a 
minute!” 

She met Farrance’s faintly sullen gaze of 
resentment with a disarming smile. “Don’t 
be cross!” she pleaded. “It’s been such an 
evening. And I must get dressed. But you 
can come along and talk to me if you like, 
after the second act. I’m not on until the end 
of the third . . . and I’ll explain all that’s 
explainable then. Afterwards we’ll have sup¬ 
per somewhere. I think this is distinctly an 
occasion for celebration. Now, for the love 
o’ Mike, both of you — git!” 

Yet when they had gone she did not im¬ 
mediately move, but stood looking straight 
ahead of her. At Sally’s exasperated re¬ 
minder of the flight of time, she sighed and 
stirred. 

“I was thinking!” she apologized. And 
added to her vivid image in the mirror, “I 
must say I’ve got to take off my hat to Ben¬ 
jamin Clay for carrying through a deal 
promptly — and for not squealing when he’s 
licked!” Then she grinned, gamin-like and 
joyously, albeit with a certain wistfulness, 
remembering whose daughter she was. 


XXVIII 


Binny played her part that night somewhat 
mechanically. She was weary physically and 
mentally; yet she was keenly alive to her 
responsibilities and to her audience. 

To one of its members her eyes strayed 
more than once, in a vague interest and ques¬ 
tion. He was an old man, prematurely old, 
Binny thought, white of hair, bent of shoulder, 
but with eyes eagle-bright that seldom, if 
ever, left her lightly moving form. Regularly 
throughout the run of the show she had seen 
him in the theatre, nearly always in the same 
seat . . . always with eyes intently, even 
greedily, fixed upon hers. He had at first 
intrigued, then annoyed her. Yet there was 
nothing of amorous admiration in his gaze, 
nothing even of appreciation in the hard, 
lined, white old face. Rather, at times, it had 
seemed to her there was condemnation. 
Certainly there was wonder. 

Once, to-night, she saw him moved from his 
customary calm, his seeming indifference, his 
disregard of his surroundings. He had 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 253 


glanced, casually, up to the boxes, and into 
one of them Gustav De Mille had just entered 
with a party of rather noisy men. Binny fol¬ 
lowed the old man’s gaze, then, frowning at 
recognition of De Mille, brought her glance 
back to his face again. It was deadly white 
now, and he had half risen in his seat. His 
eyes were blazing, his lips twitching con¬ 
vulsively. Again, involuntarily, she looked 
up at De Mille. As if drawn by the fiery, 
angry eyes, he was standing at the ledge of the 
box, looking down. And as she watched him, 
his face changed. He drew back sharply, as 
if seeking to hide himself. It seemed to her 
that there was a new fear in his face; she felt, 
and wondered at, the swift, furtive, expres¬ 
sively questioning glance he flung towards 
herself. 

Then the old man relaxed into his seat; his 
sombre gaze dwelt upon her once more; she 
went through her final dance aware of the 
burning intentness of his eyes, and of the fact 
that Gustav De Mille had ceased to be hilari¬ 
ous, and had slumped into his seat, half hidden 
by the velvet curtain, surreptitiously mopping 
his forehead. She was uncomfortably con¬ 
scious of a certainty that there was something 


254 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


wrong, but she shrugged herself out of her 
uneasy mood as she ran up to her dressing- 
room. 

Arrived there, she found Sally sniffing over 
a folded piece of paper, evidently torn from a 
notebook, and a great bunch of violets. 

“Mr. Farrance sent them up,” she an¬ 
nounced as Binny pounced upon them. “Said 
he’d be coming along himself ten minutes after 
the fall of the curtain. Will you be changing 
at once into your clothes for the last of the 
act? Or shall I come back later?” 

Binny, her face buried in the violets, shook 
her head. “I’ll change now,” she said. “It’s 
plain evening dress and I can get out of it 
without any trouble by myself. You trot along 
home, Sally. I can see by your eyes you’ve got 
a splitting head, and there’s really no need to 
wait — I can manage beautifully for myself. 
Just get me into the other frock, and I’ll be all 
right.” 

Sally pressed a throbbing temple, and 
beamed gratefully. “Came on all of a sud¬ 
den!” she declared. “Was right as rain ’alf 
an hour ago when I was havin’ my stout. 

. . Mr. De Mille sent the note up, Miss 
Lola. I’d a mind to burn it.” 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 255 


Binny frowned. She put down the violets, 
and unfolded the piece of paper. A few 
words in De Mille’s hand, scrawled not very 
steadily, wandered across the surface. 

Coming up to your dressing-room after the 
show or a little before. Got to see you most 
particularly. Avening’s here, and looks like mur¬ 
der — thought I’d warn you, in case the old boy 
sees fit to kick up a shindy. 

G. De M. 

Binny tore the note into tiny pieces and let 
them fall. She was angry: but she was also 
puzzled. 

“Avening!” she repeated bewilderedly. 
Sally, a white lace gown over her arm, looked 
at her questioningly. 

“Who” — Binny questioned, not over- 
hopefully — “is Mr. Avening, Sally? Do you 
know?” 

“Not from Adam!” Sally asserted pos¬ 
itively, and set to work unfastening hooks. 

Binny sighed, shrugged, frowned, and 
picked up the violets again. The thought of 
De Mille jarred her from her pleasant mood; 
the remembrance of the old man in the stalls, 
with the fiery, earnest eyes, haunted her un¬ 
comfortably. 


256 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


She turned with a sigh of genuine relief as 
a tap came upon the door. Sally admitted 
Farrance, bringing with him, obviously to his 
annoyance, Terry and Irma. 

The latter ran quickly to Binny. “Lola! 
What does it all mean?” she demanded. “I’m 
so dazed I don’t know where I am — I can’t 
even be happy — yet! I’m afraid!” 

Binny laughed down at her, and up at 
Terry. “You needn’t be!” she asserted. 
“Terry’s quite big enough to take care of you 
— now!” 

“But what happened? What did you do? 
Why did you go rushing off to that abominable 
Clay like that — and what did you do to 
him?” Irma’s voice was shrill with excite¬ 
ment. 

Binny did not answer quite at once. Then 
she sighed. “There’s so little, really, to tell 
you,” she said. “I knew a girl . . once, 
long ago ... t . named Clay.” She shivered 
suddenly, crushing the violets tighter to her 
breast. “She spoke once of — of her people to 
me. Some one belonging to her was named 
Benjamin Clay. I began to wonder — quite 
a time ago — if Terry’s Benjamin Clay and 
the girl’s Benjamin Clay were one and the 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 257 


same. To-night — when you were so un¬ 
happy— I thought I’d try a bit of bluff. I 
spoke of that girl over the telephone to Ben¬ 
jamin Clay — I gained a private interview 
with him in that way. And then . . . well, 
I just talked!” She grinned, reminiscently. 

Terry grinned too. “And some!” he 
hazarded. 

But Irma’s mood was not yet frivolous. 
She clung to Binny’s hands. “I can see you 
don’t want to say any more — ” she began. 

Binny interrupted mildly: “There’s nothing 
more to say!” 

“But,” Irma persisted, “I’ll never forget 
what you’ve done for me — for us both. 
Never, never, not till I’m an old lady with 
white hair and a querulous disposition, and 
Terry walks about on two sticks!” 

“Whisht, woman!” Terry interrupted 
heatedly. “Please the saints, that I’ll never 
be doing! As for being an old lady” — he 
took her suddenly and bodily into his arms, 
in a new, possessive, passionately tender cer¬ 
tainty of ownership — “you’ll never be that, 
acushla! And if you are, it’ll be the loveliest 
old lady that ever brought sunshine into a 
topsy-turvy w r orld!” 


258 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


He placed her on her feet an instant later, 
turning to Binny. “I don’t know what to 
say,” he said in a swift revulsion of spirit. “I 
can’t thank you. I don’t even know what 
you’ve really done. I can only be grateful, 
humbly and everlastingly! You’ve done so 
much. I’d like to do something, too, for 
you.” 

Binny blinked, conscious of a sudden mois¬ 
ture on her lashes. “You dears!” She slid 
a hand into his, stretching out the other to 
Irma. “And, if it comes to that, you can! Be 
yourselves. Live your own lives. Fight for 
yourselves and each other, and don’t give a 
tinker’s cuss for any one, high or low, who 
wants to interfere with you! Stick to each 
other through thick and thin — love each 
other — and work! It’s pretty crude advice. 
But it has its points, believe me!” 

“I do!” Terry spoke soberly, his hand 
gripped so hard upon hers that she winced. 
“And — we will! ” He turned to Irma. 

The latter smiled unsteadily, in absolute 
acquiescence. “All the same,” she said, after 
a moment, “I don’t understand — even now!” 

“You don’t need to!” Binny assured her 
promptly. “Just grab what the gods have 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 259 


given you, and be mighty thankful you’ve got 
it . . . seeing it’s what you want!” 

Terry held out his arms. Across Irma’s 
head Binny met Dudley Farrance’s eyes and 
smiled gladly, but with a mist of tears in her 
own. 

“Curtain!” she said softly. 

With the closing of the door Farrance’s 
arms went about her. She struggled for a 
moment, resisting instinctively, without know¬ 
ing why; then suddenly, with a sob, she grew 
unexpectedly limp and lay still, her eyes 
closed, her head against his arm, her mouth 
upturned to his. A queer, bewildering, 
unlooked-for mood of surrender was upon her. 
The feeling she had been harbouring in her 
heart for this man, damming it rigorously, 
refusing to think upon it greatly, rose up and 
overwhelmed her. She sobbed again as his 
lips found hers — her hands went up, close 
and tight about his neck, straining him nearer. 
And Farrance, stammering for words, fell 
dumb, content to read the light in her wet 
eyes, with the promise of her tremulous lips. 

They did not hear the opening of the door. 
They did not know that they were not alone 


260 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


until, from the threshold, a voice spoke — 
mocking, yet savage, too; a voice that brought 
Binny free from Farrance’s arms at a spring, 
her hands against her throat. 

“Gustav!” 

De Mille made a little gesture. He closed 
the door firmly behind him, and stood with 
his hand upon the knob. Farrance took a step 
forward, and paused at the supplication of 
Binny’s outflung hand. 

De Mille smiled. “You expected me,” he 
murmured suavely, but with something in his 
tone that made the girl clench her hands — 
“not quite so soon?” He did not look at 
Farrance. His eyes were on Binny. 

She met them, at first aghast, then with a 
swift flare of resentment and anger in her 
own. “How dare you!” .She flung the chal¬ 
lenge at him fiercely. 

He shrugged. “It occurs to me,” he said, 
again with an alien quiet that struck a queer 
chill to Binny’s heart, “that I have dared 
— during the last few weeks — too little! 
My dear Lola! Even you must concede me 
certain rights to — er — object to a scene 
such as I have just witnessed?” 

The hand against Binny’s throat tightened. 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 261 


She flung one glance at Farrance, and caught 
her breath. Then her head went up. 
“Rights!” she echoed scornfully. “You!” 
She controlled herself with an effort, and 
pointed to the door. “You will go,” she said 
quietly — “at once. And I tell you here, and 
now, and for good and all, that I deny that 
you have any rights — either to control or 
criticize any action of mine!” 

“So?” De Mille’s lips twisted slightly. He 
met the challenge of Binny’s eyes with answer¬ 
ing challenge. “So? ...” 

He paused as Farrance took a step forward. 
“Miss Arnaut,” Farrance said, “is going to 
marry me.” 

“So!” De Mille echoed the word softly, 
exasperatingly, for a third time. “My dear 
Lola! I knew you’d nerve, but I never 
guessed you’d try and pull a bluff like this! 
May I ask — are you also going to deny that 
you’re my wife?” 


XXIX 


There was an instant of blank silence. Then 
Binny laughed, a little scornful, angry laugh. 

“You’re drunk, Gustav!” she informed him 
bluntly. “Don’t you think it would be as 
well to get out of this room before you make 
yourself any more unpleasant, and have to 
be thrown out?” 

De Mille’s eyes flickered over her mock¬ 
ingly; and, somehow, something in their 
unusual assurance struck an odd little chill 
to the girl’s heart. Involuntarily she moved 
a step nearer to him, a swift passion of resent¬ 
ment shaking her. 

“I’ve warned you already,” she said tensely 
— “and I meant it, that I’ll not stand for 
any kind of interference or annoyance from 
you. I’ve told you what the consequences 
will be — to you — if you do not leave me 
and my affairs absolutely and completely 
alone. And I wasn’t bluffing. I meant what 
I said!” 

De Mille’s fleeting smile was ugly — and 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 263 


triumphant. “I’m not bluffing either,” he 
assured her. “And / mean what I say! You 
can’t get away with it, Lola. It’s no use. 
You’ve gone just a step too far, old girl. No 
— wait!” 

He lifted a shaky hand silencingly, and went 
on, ignoring Farrance’s angry growl, Binny’s 
passionate gesture. “I’ve been waiting to 
have my say — and I’m going to. Listen, 
my dear. You thought, as soon as you found 
you were somebody and something — making 
a success — money, gaining real popularity, 
that you’d be through with me. You told me 
so; you made it very clear that, unless I took 
a back seat and left you entirely to your own 
devices, you’d go deliberately out of your 
way to put me in Queer Street. You remem¬ 
ber?” 

Binny’s lip lifted. As ever, a challenge 
fired her blood. She stiffened ever so slightly, 
preparing instantly for the fray. At her side 
Farrance made a quick movement. She 
glanced at him, and a faint shadow of distress, 
of pain dawned in her eyes. But she answered 
De Mille quite steadily. “I remember.” 

She was watching him closely, ever so 
faintly puzzled by his manner. He was drunk, 


264 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


perhaps, but only sufficiently so to make his 
mood ugly, so ugly that he was on the verge 
of throwing all caution to the winds. She 
added quickly: “I remember, Gustav. But — 
is it altogether a wise move on your part to 
act this way? Are you going to do yourself 
any good by it?” 

De Mille laughed. “I don’t know!” he 
retorted. “But I do know that I’m going to 
do you a damned lot of harm! See here, 
I told you that night I’d make you pay. I’m 
going to.” He straightened himself and came 
from the door. 

Farrance made a movement to step between 
them, but Binny checked him. tier face was 
rather white; there was something in 
De Mille’s expression that puzzled her, made 
her vaguely uneasy, but she waited quietly 
enough, watching him steadily. 

“Listen. You’ve managed to climb right 
up to the top. You’ve taken your fling. 
You’re successful — making money — getting 
in the limelight. But you’ve made one 
mistake. You’ve been in cahoots with me 
too long, Lola, to treat me like dirt when 
you don’t need me any more. I’ve kept in 
the background, all right, all right — but I 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 265 


haven’t been blind. I’ve kept my mouth shut, 
and my eyes open.” He paused, and for a 
second his glance dwelt upon Farrance. 
Again he smiled. “You’re pretty clever, Lola! 
But folks can occasionally be just too clever. 
I’ve stood for you flirting with Farrance here; 
and I might have stood for the rest, even for 
the bluff of going through the farce of 
marriage with him, if you’d played the game 
with me, if you’d been square and let me in 
on the spoils, as in the old days. But now — 
here’s where I spill the beans, good and 
plenty.” 

Binny drew a breath that was scarcely 
audible. Sideways, she looked at Farrance. 
A flutter of fear was in her heart; yet she 
waited, quiet, ever alert. 

“I might have waited a little longer, of 
course — might have let you marry, and then 
turned the tables and taken to threatening in 
my turn. You wouldn’t have found it pleas¬ 
ant to be brought up on a bigamy charge; 
only ...” 

“You damned cad!” Of a sudden Far- 
rance’s hands were upon the other’s shoulders. 
“If you open your lips again, I’ll break your 
neck!” He glanced at Binny. “Open the 


266 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


door!” he ordered peremptorily. “I’m going 
to throw him out.” 

De Mille did not move, and, unexpectedly, 
meeting his eyes, Binny shivered. “I 
shouldn’t!” De Mille said smoothly. “You 
wouldn’t get over-much sympathy, you know 
— kickin’ a chap out of his own wife’s 
dressing-room!” He twisted himself deftly 
free and stood back a little. “Believe me, 
Farrance, you’re the goat! This very charm¬ 
ing lady, known publicly as Lola Arnaut, is 
in reality Mrs. Gustav De Mille!” 

“It’s a lie!” Binny flashed forward, eyes 
ablaze. Her hands were clenched, her breath 
coming unevenly. “It’s a lie!” she cried 
again. “A lie — a lie!" 

De Mille looked at her mockingly, yet with 
some perplexity. “Lord, Lola!” he expostu¬ 
lated. “Don’t you know when it’s time to 
quit? I’m speaking the truth, and you know 
it! What’s the use of keeping up the bluff?” 

“It’s a lie!” Binny’s voice rose shrilly, 
and ceased. Her lips had begun to quiver. 
There was something of panic in her soul. 
Wildly she was trying to remember that 
precious diary of the real Lola’s — that never- 
failing store of information from which she 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 267 


had gleaned so much. A growing bewilder¬ 
ment and horror was upon her. She watched 
De Mille, fascinated, as with a slight shrug 
he slipped his hand into his pocket. 

“I shouldn’t make a statement like this 
without proof!” he retorted. “If Mr. Far- 
rance cares to glance at this bit of paper, 
he’ll see that it is a certificate of marriage 

. . our marriage. In addition to which 
Avening — your father — is in the theatre. 
He can testify that you ran away with me — 
married me — and that he disowned you in 
consequence!” 

Binny put out a hand gropingly and felt 
for the back of a chair. She had grown sud¬ 
denly very cold. The room was whirling 
round her, and for a moment she closed her 
eyes. Desperately she struggled to collect 
herself, piteously aware of De Mille’s trium¬ 
phant smile, and the stricken unbelief of 
Dudley Farrance’s white face. 

The blow that De Mille had struck, so 
suddenly, so utterly unexpectedly, was devas¬ 
tating. Never once had she dreamed of the 
possibility that the dead woman who had been 
her sister had married this man; never once 
had such a thought occurred to her. In all 


268 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


the diary there had been no hint, no merest 
suggestion of such a thing. She lifted her 
hands and put them against her throbbing 
temples. The world was still rocking about 
her; she felt giddy, even a little faint. A sick¬ 
ening sense of helplessness was upon her. 
She could not even think clearly. She could 
only tell herself that she had, after all, been a 
fool — had, for all her cleverness, made more 
than one mistake. She had overlooked two 
things — the possibility that her sister had 
been more to De Mille than merely his tool, 
and the fact that her name was not really 
Arnaut. 

Avening! She thought of the old man in 
the stalls with the burning eyes — remem¬ 
bered how he had watched her — the bitter¬ 
ness of the look he had flung at De Mille. 
She wondered what would have happened if 
she had met him face to face, before 
De Mille’s revelation of the marriage. How 
seriously would she have betrayed herself? 
Truly, there had been more pitfalls in her 
path of deceit than even she had imagined! 
She knew an impulse to laugh, but it was gone 
immediately. She let her hands fall heavily 
to her sides, and drew a deep breath. 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 269 


She looked once at De Mille — a flash of 
undying defiance — and then, rather pitifully, 
at Farrance. “I guess,” she conceded, very 
wearily, “that the game’s upl” 


XXX 


Binny was never very clear as to what hap¬ 
pened immediately after that. It seemed to 
her that a great distance lay between her and 
the two men — that her surroundings were 
unreal and indistinct. From the mists that 
clouded her mind she heard the sound of 
Dudley Farrance’s voice. Somehow it made 
her wince, stabbed her to a keener conscious¬ 
ness of what was happening. 

“Lola! For God’s sake . .. . you don’t 
mean that?” 

She looked at him stupidly, questioningly. 
She wanted to speak, wanted to give some sort 
of explanation, but she could not. Instead 
she shook her head, turning slowly away. But 
an instant later, at the sound of the opening 
door, she swung round again, a quick, cold 
fear at her heart. Of a sudden it dawned 
upon her that Far ranee had seen the wrong 
meaning in her words — that he believed she 
was confessing the truth of De Mille’s state¬ 
ment. With a smothered cry she ran forward 
A . . the wail of the violins came floating 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 271 


faintly up — a breath of overhot air was 
wafted into the room, then the door closed. 
She found herself standing with outstretched 
palms pressed against the panels, and De Mille 
laughing softly at her elbow. 

For a full minute she stood quite still. 
Then, as rapidly as they engulfed her, the 
mists rolled away from her brain. She was, 
amazingly, herself again, capable, self-pos¬ 
sessed, her mind crystal clear. A little shaken, 
a little breathless. But that was all. She 
glanced up at the clock, and was amazed to 
see that a bare fifteen minutes had passed 
since De Mille had entered the room. Those 
minutes had seemed to her like hours. She 
turned from the door and crossed steadily to 
the dressing-table, picking up a bottle of 
cologne and wetting her handkerchief with 
it. She held it for several seconds against 
her forehead, and then, bending closer to the 
glass, touched her face lightly with a powder- 
puff. Her hand scarcely shook, but the line 
of her mouth was grim and hard, the look in 
her eyes strangely determined. She sighed 
as she set the puff down. The end of the 
game had come quicker than she had antici¬ 
pated. It was all over. 


272 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


She looked at herself in the mirror, and her 
lips twisted in a smile. It was a curious smile, 
half triumphant, half wistful. De Mille, 
watching her, wondered. She caught his gaze 
upon her and the smile died. Rut beyond 
that she did not show that she was heeding 
him at all. Her thoughts were very far away, 
very complicated. 

The game was played; the comedy was 
finished. She had known triumph, success, 
applause — she had tasted some of the joy 
of fame. She had worked, and known her 
work good. She had deceived, but in the 
beginning she had done so with a set purpose. 
That purpose she had accomplished — almost. 
Her eyes narrowed and gleamed as she looked 
at De Mille again. Almost — but not quite. 
There was something yet for her to do. After¬ 
wards . . . Afterwards, she did not know. 
She could not know. 

She thought of Farrance, and a lump rose in 
her throat. A gust of passionate pain, of 
regret, of longing shook her. What would he 
think? What would he say? He who from 
the beginning had done so much for her, been 
so stanch a friend. Remembering the sure 
clasp of his arms, the passion of his kisses, 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 273 


she, closed her eyes. At least, she whispered 
to herself, he would know the real truth. He 
would know that whatever else she might have 
done she had loved him honestly; had, in her 
feeling for him, deceived him not at all; would 
know that no other had held any place in her 
life. 

She lifted her lids, and looked at De Mille. 
He had followed her into the room, and stood 
just behind her. 

“And what,” he asked mockingly, “I won¬ 
der, are you going to do now, friend Lola?” 

Binny turned abruptly, facing him, her 
hands against the dressing-table. She did not 
reply at once, but seemed to be weighing 
her answer, and there was an odd look of 
growing purpose in her small face. Presently 
she glanced once more at the clock. 

“First,” she said, with great deliberation, 
“I’m going to see the show through. Then 
I’m going to find Mr. Van Bevan and make 
a clean breast of things. Tell him that I’ve 
been cheating all this time, impersonating 
another woman — that I’m an impostor.” 

She sighed, catching a quivering lower lip 
between her teeth. But her eyes dwelt 
steadily on the man’s blank face. 


274 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


“I’m going to tell him the truth. That I 
went that night to Delorme’s to right a wrong 
— a terrible wrong; that I stayed, tempted 
beyond my strength, by the amazing freak of 
nature which had fashioned me so completely 
in the image of Lola Arnaut that not even 
her most intimate friends questioned my 
identity; to fill, if only a time, her shoes — to 
grasp her opportunities — to make a way to 
prosperity and success along the path she had 
been following.” 

She passed her hand lightly across her fore¬ 
head. The room was insufferably close and 
hot; she felt breathless, heavy. She seemed 
to see De Mille’s face through a slight haze 
still, though her mind had never been clearer, 
and his voice, when he spoke, was distinct, 
even loud. 

“Mother of Heaven!” he was stammering, 
over and over again, thickly, meaninglessly. 
“Mother of Heaven!” He was livid, white- 
lipped, but at the look growing in his eyes 
she shuddered. 

She went on slowly. “Afterwards I shall 
go to the police. I shall tell them, also, the 
truth: the truth of what happened that night 
before I came to Delorme’s . . . that night, 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 275 


Gustav De Mille, when you strangled Lola 
Arnaut to death !” 

“It’s a lie!” De Mille’s voice rose nearly 
to a scream, broke, and died chokingly. His 
hands went out, clawlike, shaking, towards 
her. “You devil from hell! It’s a lie! I 
didn’t kill you — you are Lola Arnaut! You 
i, . . you ...” He stopped. 

Binny shook her head. “No!” she said, 
“I’m not Lola Arnaut. Lola Arnaut is dead — 
murdered. And, Gustav De Mille, you’ll hang 
for her — don’t make the least mistake about 
that!” 

De Mille’s hands dropped slowly to his 
side. His mouth was twitching horribly; 
there was stark fear in his eyes; then, in a 
moment, it passed. A fleck of colour came 
back to his cheeks, he flung back his head and 
laughed. 

“The age of miracles has passed!” he cried. 
“Do you suppose any sane person would 
believe that — off the pictures or out of a 
book — any woman could be so absolutely 
like another, an utter stranger, as to . . .” 

“Lola Arnaut was not a stranger! The 
mother who bore her, bore me. That knowl¬ 
edge — the knowledge of her relationship to 


276 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


me — was what made me follow Lola that 
night. I was down and out — I wanted help 
— I hoped and believed she could give it to 
me. . . . But that doesn’t matter now. 
All that matters is that I was there; that 
I know you were in the car with her — that I 
heard you quarrelling and that I found her 
dead!” 

“And who’ll believe you? No one! No 
one could believe you! The whole world 
knows that you are in love with Farrance; 
expects you to marry him. Your father, 
Henry Avening, will identify you, absolutely, 
as his daughter. His daughter, who was 
married to me! Farrance will believe — 
every one will believe — that you have 
trumped up this yarn to save your own skin 
from the consequences of your connection 
with me in certain matters — if you go so far 
as giving me away — and to make out that 
you are free to marry Dudley Farrance, after 
all!” 

Binny made a little passionate movement, 
but he waved her to silence. 

“I tell you, nowadays, that sort of thing 
won’t go down! It’s too far-fetched — too 
utterly impossible! You can’t get away with 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 277 


it, my girl! You can’t get away with it . . ., 
and you know it! The very fact that now you 
don’t want to be Lola Arnaut will dish you 
.. . .” He came to a breathless pause. 

Binny was swaying a little where she stood, 
her eyes dilated, her lips pinched. It was 
being borne in upon her slowly that there was 
truth in what he said. The story she had 
to tell was so utterly fantastical, so seemingly 
impossible: her reason for casting aside her 
role so obvious — now. Lola Arnaut was 
Gustav De Mille’s wife — his accomplice in 
nefarious dealings — his tool. 

She pressed her hands to her eyes, visualiz¬ 
ing the incredulity that would greet her story. 
A horrible sensation of being in a net, unable 
to free herself, was upon her. She felt that 
she was choking, and let one hand slide down 
to her throat. The mist between her and 
De Mille’s leering face was growing; she 
knew a strange difficulty in breathing. 
Vaguely, from a great distance, she was aware 
of a confused rise and fall of voices — of some 
strange, persistent noise. 

Above it she heard De Mille’s voice again: 
“You can’t get away with it! You can’t get 
away with it! . ...” 


278 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


At the same instant an instinctive sense of 
danger, of some creeping peril sent her flying 
past him to the door. She wrenched it open, 
and fell back with a gasp. The acrid, choking 
smell of burning sent the tears blindingly to 
her eyes. One end of the passage was clear, 
the end leading to the stairs and the street. 
Along the other, thickening with every swift 
second, dense, ominous, were writhing, whirl¬ 
ing volumes of smoke. From the distant 
auditorium she could just faintly catch the 
sound of voices — of screaming, shouting . . . 

With a sobbing gasp she turned and looked 
back at De Mille. “The theatre’s on fire!” 
she cried; and even as the words left her lips 
there came an uproar of voices from the street 
far below the windows. A flame shot up, 
without, blinding, lurid ... It seemed to 
sear Binny’s brain and heart, to cleave the 
curtain of misgiving and helplessness that 
hung heavy upon her, to light a way — 
amazingly, blindingly — from the morass in 
which she groped. 

Even as De Mille, white-lipped, horrified, 
sprang for the door, she drew it closed again 
with a crash, turned the key in the lock, 
and wrenched it from the keyhole. Before, 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 279 


dazed with amaze at her action, he could stop 
her, she was at the window. Panting, she 
flung it up. As she did so the lights in the 
room behind her went out. From the floor 
below another flame shot up — the street 
below was a sea of bellying smoke and 
insidious, searing swords of flame. Involun¬ 
tarily the girl recoiled. Then her arm lifted. 
The key of the door went hurtling down into 
the hell seething below them . . . 

“Great God!” De Mille’s hands were 
gripping her arms, dragging her back, bruis¬ 
ing her cruelly; De Mille’s face, agonized with 
fear, was close to her own — and Binny, in 
a sudden frenzy of triumph, stood silhouetted 
against the welter of smoke and brazen 
reflection from the fire and laughed at him. 
She laughed as he shook her, flung her from 
him — laughed as she picked herself up, and 
stood panting against the wall. And then 
she ceased. At the window De Mille was 
battering with desperate hands at the frame¬ 
work and screaming thinly into the lurid 
nothingness that was below. 

Her voice, flat, yet singularly clear above 
the increasing hiss and roar, brought him 
round upon her, mouthing meaningless 


280 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


curses. “Listen!” she cried. “You’re trapped. 
That’s a side street below the windows. Even 
if they realize we’re here, they couldn’t get 
to us because of the flames — the fire appears 
to be below us. You can’t get out that way. 
You’re not strong enough to batter down that 
door — and I’ve thrown away the key! Do 
you understand? I’ve thrown away the 
key!” She dashed aside the hands that 
clutched at her, panting. 

“Listen! If you could get out of that door, 
you could escape. The passage to the stairs 
and the street is still clear . . . that’s 
probably why they’ll never give heed to us. 
It will be believed that we got away long 
ago. . . We could get away still! But you 
can’t open the door.” She turned her face 
to the window. The room was alight now, 
and she stiffened herself, keeping him back 
from her with an outflung arm. 

“Wait!” she commanded. “I’ve got 
another key. Another key that will open that 
door. It’s here, in this room, but you 
wouldn’t be able to find it unless I should 
tell you where to look. And without that 
key you’ll die like a rat in a trap, Gustav 
De Mille!” 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 281 


She did not hear what he shrieked at her; 
she just stood there, eyes burning, body tense, 
a small, stiff smile on her lips. Above the 
tumult of his words she went on, watching 
him as he began to stumble round the room, 
searching, groping, whimpering, in a desper¬ 
ate, maddened seeking for the key to freedom, 
liberty, life. 

“You won’t find it, Gustav: not until it’s 
too late, anyway; not before the passage out¬ 
side is choked with smoke, the stairway a hell 
of flame! Not before then, friend Gustav! 
Not before then. But ” — she ran to him sud¬ 
denly, gripping his arm, compelling his atten¬ 
tion — “but I’ll barter it to you! I’ll tell you 
where it is — give you a chance to open that 
door, to save your life — even to make a clear 
get-away!—I’ll do that, Gustav, if you’ll 
write, here and now, a full confession of why, 
and when, and where you killed Lola 
Arnaut!” 


XXXI 


De Mille staggered and recovered himself. 
His eyes were staring, horribly. They sought 
the girl’s, at first uncomprehendingly, then 
with a dawning light of understanding. His 
lips twisted in a grin of rage; wildly he struck 
her and sent her reeling. 

“Damn you!” he screamed. “Damn you! 
Damn you! . . . Give me the key! ...” 

Binny began to cough. The blow had flung 
her against the dressing-table and she hung 
there, gasping. Through the open window 
the smoke was beginning to curl — a seeking 
flame licked round the sill. Fighting for 
breath, she pointed, and De Mille screamed 
again. . . . 

At the sound Binny caught her hands up 
over her ears. But she spoke, swiftly, inci¬ 
sively: “It’s for you to choose — for you to 
decide. Only — there’s not much time.” She 
coughed again, swaying. “Listen! Long ago 
— when I first began to realize how deep I 
was in this affair — I wrote an explanation 
of what I had done, and why. I told how 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 283 


I had learned that Lola Arnaut was my 
sister, my half-sister. I gave every detail 
of my life in Fulgarth Street as Binny Clay. 
You wouldn’t understand that — and it 
doesn’t matter now.” She turned from the 
table and staggered to the window, gasping. 
The heat drove her back, and she faced him 
grimly. “You’ve got to listen! . f . ... I gave 
the name of the woman who had brought me 
up, of my mother — of the few neighbours I 
had known. I described in detail the clothes 
I was wearing that night: described how I 
waited for Lola, followed the car, jumped 
on the footboard. I described you, and see¬ 
ing you get into the car while it was waiting. 
I stated everything that happened from the 
moment I found that Lola was dead! Every¬ 
thing is written in that statement, and the 
chauffeurs’ stories—Dudley Farrance’s man’s, 
and that of the man who helped me carry her 
up to my room — should be some proof of the 
truth of what I’ve said. Your confession 
would be absolute proof!” 

De Mille was beating on the door, now, 
flinging himself against the panels. Over his 
shoulder he cried at her, wildly: “Give me 
the key! Oh, God! Give me the key! ” 


284 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


Binny, swaying still, made her stumbling 
way to a table in the corner. A blotter and 
note-paper lay upon it, the edges of the paper 
curling in the increasing heat. 

“Ill give it to you — if you’ll write the 
truth. Only you must be quick. You must 
be very quick. Look!” She flung a hand 
towards the door. Beneath it thin spirals of 
smoke were creeping in. 

De Mille ceased to batter on the panels and 
turned to face her. He was ashen, shaking so 
that he could scarcely stand. For a moment 
he stood rocking, then he ran to her side, 
clutched the pen she held to him. Above him 
she stood, her hands against her throbbing 
throat. 

“Sally saw me sign,” she murmured, half 
dreamily. “The paper’s tied up and sealed in 
Lola’s diary. Sally has it. I told her — to 
keep it: to give it to Dudley — if anything — 
should happen to me. You see” — her lips 
twisted in the semblance of a smile — “I was 
never quite sure of you — or what you might 
do. I never guessed things would be like this. 
Sally saw me sign it — weeks ago, so — with 
what you’re writing now — it ought to make 
things clear ^ 1V ” 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 285 


From somewhere below there came a crash. 
Through the smoke without, now beginning to 
pour in through the window, a shower of 
sparks went up. There came the sound of 
hoarse shouting. De Mille made as if to 
spring to his feet, but the girl’s hands were on 
his shoulders. 

“Write!” she urged. “And write truly. 
It will not do to waste time” 

“Damn you!” he sobbed, but his pen flew 
— and Binny, standing above him, watched. 
She snatched the page from him as at last he 
dropped the pen, folded it, thrust it low into 
her gown. She was stifling, choking, and half 
blinded by the smoke, but with sure, desperate 
hands she felt among the litter of letters and 
papers at the back of the table. A second 
later she was at the door, where De Mille 
raged. 

The dreamy sense of unreality left her. Life 
beat up within her, calling to her. Sudden 
terror of the death she had braved, unheeding 
and uncaring only a few minutes since, drove 
her to her knees, feeling for the keyhole. She 
found it at last, turned the key, flung the door 
wide. On the threshold they stood together. 
A surging wave of smoke drove them back, 


286 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


but at the stair end the passage was still clear 
— a Heaven-sent breath of clean air met 
them. 

Binny, eyes closed, was clinging to the lintel 
of the door. Her strength was suddenly gone. 
She felt De Mille rush past her, and called to 
him, indistinctly. He turned in his stride, 
and looked back. Against the smoke, lit by 
the flames behind them, she saw his face. 
His arm lifted. 

“Damn you!” he reiterated, savagely, and 
struck. Then, turning, he ran towards the 
stairs. 


XXXII 


Out of a nightmare of horror Binny roused to 
a confused sound of voices, to a vague real¬ 
ization of familiar figures round her, backed 
by a lurid glare, and begrimed demons from 
some seemingly nethermost pit in brass hel¬ 
mets . . . She believed that she cried out. 
She knew that voices called to her, reassuring, 
soothing, tender. She heard some one 
sobbing hysterically — felt gentle hands upon 
her. 

Then she descended to a new nightmare of 
pain, and fought with a devil whose eyes were 
Gustav De Mille’s eyes, and whose hands were 
about her throat. . . . She went down to 
the darkness crying Lola’s name, at once 
appealingly and triumphantly. 

She woke again in a darkened yet familiar 
room. A weight was upon her feet, which 
purred and stirred as she moved. Rose scents 
were hauntingly about her. In the gloom she 
detected Sally’s familiar sniff as, on the other 
side of the bed, some one sobbed. She tried 
to turn her head. A voice that she knew to be 


288 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


Irma’s spoke to her, over choked sobs, from 
the darkness. Sally’s broke across it — 
Sally’s arm lifted her head. Something 
touched her lips and she drank and slept, 
dreamlessly. 

Sally was still beside her when she roused 
again, many hours afterwards. A Sally less 
plump, it would seem, furrowed with anxiety, 
motherly, gentle — a Sally whose eyes 
brimmed with tears and whose rough hand 
pulled the silken eiderdown higher solici¬ 
tously. 

“Glory be to the Lord!” The voice was 
rough, the tone infinitely thankful. “She’s 
come back!” 

Binny grinned, irrepressibly. She made to 
free herself of the silken covering, and bit 
back a groan. The grin died. Her eyes 
sought Sally’s. 

“Then it wasn’t a dream?” she whispered, 
in a curious little croaking voice she could not 
recognize as her own. 

Sally regarded her grimly. “Not by a long 
chalk, it wasn’t.. t .. Lie still, dearie! . . .” 

But the girl’s eyes were wide now, brilliant 
with anxiety and question. “Sally! Am I 
am I much hurt?” 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 289 


“Not so as you’ll notice it, honey — after a 
month or two!” Sally assured her comfort¬ 
ingly, and once more, in spite of herself, Binny 
gurgled into an irrepressible mirth. 

“And I’m not dead! . . . The theatre 
t . . the others? Sally! Sally!” Horror of 
remembrance rushed upon her, blanching her 
face, sending her hands wildly in desperate 
seeking of comfort. 

Sally’s closed upon them. Sally’s stony 
glance restrained the forward movement of a 
dim figure close to the door. “You’re not 
dead, nor likely to be — not from this little 
dose. As to the theatre, it’s as right as it 
ever was — except for its innards! If you’re 
meaning by the others the folks who were 
there — well, they’re here now, the whole 
bloomin’ lot of them, an’ me that’s so bothered 
with one thing and another I don’t know if 
I’m on me head or me heels. And the doctor 
wantin’ to send a nurse in and me refusin’ — 
as I’m sure you’d be wishin’ me to, Miss Lola. 
Not to speak of the police, and all!” 

“The police! . . Sally! Tell me — 
they know — everything?” 

“If you’ll not be fashin’ yourself, I’ll 
answer. Lie still, then! It’s all right, Mr. 


290 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


Farrance; I reckon I know how to be dealin’ 
with the lamb. . . . You can do all the 
talkin’ you like when she’s ready for it, which 
she isn’t at the minute, havin’ somethin’ on 
her mind, and her senses not properly back!” 

She patted Binny’s hand soothingly. “It’s 
all right, dearie!” she comforted. “Every¬ 
thing’s all right! And everything’s goin’ on 
bein’ all right—you can bet your life on that! 
As for knowin’ . . . every one knows every¬ 
thing , dearie! Every one who matters, of 
course. The rest just know what they read 
in the papers — which ain’t everything.” 

She wrinkled her nose, still pawing the girl’s 
hand gently. “You’ve been lyin’ here, half 
dead, close on three weeks. Which bein’ so 
I took the liberty of handin’ over that packet 
you left with me to Mr. Farrance — with the 
paper I found stuck inside your camisole the 
night of the fire — not bein’ sure if you’d ever 
come round or not, and rememberin’ how 
strict you were about what I was to do with 
the packet. If I’ve done wrong, I can’t help 
it. You bein’ so near dead we hardly knew if 
we’d keep you alive, I couldn’t well do other¬ 
wise. Anyway, you’ve held a reception on 
your doorstep most days of the week, not 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 291 


to speak of Mr. Farrance rampagin’ like a 
tiger, and Miss Irma cryin’ her eyes out, 
and Mr. Terry But there! Talk 

about publicity! ... . ., And now, here’s the 
doctor!” 

Binny sighed, and closed her eyes. Open¬ 
ing them, fleetingly, she caught a glimpse, 
across a broad shoulder, of Dudley Farrance’s 
face — and though wistfully unsure of the 
reality of his presence, yet she was warmed by 
a new sense of comfort. 

There came a day when, lying still among 
her pillows, she spoke, abruptly, to the 
occupants of the room in general — they being 
Sally, Irma, and the cat — and Irma in par¬ 
ticular. 

“I want to see Dudley,” she said, turning 
wide eyes from a bowl of violets at her side. 
“But I want to see Mr. Harkness — first. 
Alone.” 

When he came, she smiled at him gravely, 
stretching a thin hand towards him. Her 
eyes held his, searchingly, a little sad. 

He took it, held it fast between his own. 
He spoke first: “Binny Clay!” he whispered 
huskily. “Binny Clay! .. She must 

have named you after me! . ... .. ” 


292 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


Binny’s eyes lightened, glowed. “Then — 
you guessed, after all?” 

“I couldn’t help it. There have been 
inquiries, of course. And that letter you left 
with Sally; a lot of it had to become public.” 

“But — I haven’t hurt you?” Binny’s 
fingers clung. She raised herself on her pil¬ 
lows. “No one could know you — that Ben¬ 
jamin Clay is you?” 

Harkness shook his head. “No. No one 
knows that. You’re a sport — kid!” 

She dropped back, smiling. “And we’re 
friends?” 

Harkness looked down into the wide eyes 
— at the firm little hand. His lips twisted 
oddly. “How otherwise? The best ever — 
and for always. We’ll have a lot to talk 
about — Binny — when you’re better. Just 
you and I.” 

Binny smiled. Then her eyes darkened. 
“Dudley?” Her lip quivered for a moment. 
“He knows? About — the way I cheated, I 
mean?” 

Harkness met her glance gravely. “We all 
know . . . Dudley is waiting. He has 
been waiting — waiting — ever since that 
awful night. I’ll send him to you now.” 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 293 


She opened her lips; closed them again. 
Her eyes clung to his, wistful, questioning. 
Her face was faintly touched with pink. 

“Does he want to come?” she said, and 
Harkness made a little gesture. 

“Dudley Farrance,” he said, very quietly, 
“loves — you! f} 

As he reached the door, she checked him. 
“Gustav?” Her face was once more white 
with the horror of remembrance. “Tell me 
„ . . ?” 

Harkness looked at her, and away. He 
hesitated, cleared his throat. Then: “He 
was mad!” he said. “He was mad — mad 
with fright. He could not have seen the 
stairs for the smoke . ,. he pitched head¬ 

long down them. He was dead when they 
picked him up ...” 

She did not know that Farrance was in the 
room until he touched her. Then with a little 
cry she turned to him, reached out her arms. 
But when he would have caught her close in 
his, she held him back. 

“You know?” she said. “You know?” — 
as if pitifully seeking to be sure. 

For answer Farrance gathered her up and 


294 CHILDREN OF CHANCE 


held her, so tightly that she fought for breath, 
his cheek against hers. 

“I know!” he told her. “And I know that 
I love you! That is all that really matters, 
heart of mine! That, and being, for always, 
together.” 

From beyond the closed door there came the 
rising note of Sally’s voice, cheerfully scolding. 

“Hot-water bottles ., ,. . bandages . . ., 
breakfast in the middle of the night and the 
day too! These dratted nurses! Thank the 
good Lord, I stood out for only one — me 
havin’ all the work of the house to do in the 
day! I’d be in me grave by now if I hadn’t 
— and Miss Lola too, most like. Work! 
Bless your heart! I’ve done nothing but work 
all me life, and I’ll go on working all me life 
,. f . . quit your blarney, Mr. Terry, and not 
be makin’ quite so much noise . What’s 
that? When’ll Miss Lola be up and fit for the 
theatre again? im . . G — rrh! Drat the 
theatre, say I! I’ve had about enough of it. 
Seems to me I’ve lost all heart for it, 
lately ,. t . . ” 

In Farrance’s arms Binny shivered, stirred, 
ceased to smile. She drew a little away from 
him, soft palms against his breast. “So have 


CHILDREN OF CHANCE 295 


I!” she whispered. “Oh — my dear! I’m so 
tired of pretending! I just want to live — 
and to be loved!” 

Sally, opening the door at that juncture, 
gently shut it again. 

“Which, by the same token, as Mr. Terry 
would say,” she announced to the white cat, 
“is divilish bad luck for Mr. Van Bevan!” 



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